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CREDO 


OTHER BOOKS BY 
STEWART EDWARD WHITE 


FICTION 
Tue Giory Hoe 
Of the Old West 
Tue Cram Jumpers Brazep Trait STORIES 
Tue WESTERNERS THe KILLER 
Arizona NIGHTs 
Of the Far North 


Conyuror’s House THE SILENT PLAcEs 


Of the Lumber Woods 
Tue Biazep TRAIL Tue RivERMAN 
BLAZED TRAIL STORIES THE RULES OF THE GAME 
Of California 
Tue RuLEs oF THE GAME ‘THE Gray Dawn 
GoLp Tue Rose Dawn 
On TipToE 
Of Mystery 
Tue Mystery (With Samuel Hopkins Adams) 
Tue Sicn aT Six 
Of Africa 
Tue Leoparp WomAN SIMBA 
ADVENTURE—THE OUT OF DOORS— 
EXPLORATION 
THE Forest CaMP AND TRAIL 
Tue Mountains Tue Lanp oF Footprints 
THE CABIN AFrican CAmpP FIRES 
Tue Pass Tue REDISCOVERED CoUNTRY 
HISTORICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL 


Tue ’Forty-NINERS 
DanreL Boone: WILDERNESS SCOUT 


JUVENILE 


THE Macic Forest 
Tue ADVENTURES oF Boppy OrDE 








CREDO™ 






BY 
STEWART ED WARDYOLTTE 






GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
1925 






COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE 
& COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE 
COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N., Y. 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 


Naturally this book represents fairly wide reading 
in a great many fields of thought. It is impossible to 
nominate the ancestry, more or less remote, of any 
one or any set of ideas; though that ancestry may 
recall itself or hint at itself to a reader here and there. 
Certain definite and outstanding conceptions owe their 
beginnings to especial sources, however. ‘The beauti- 
fully compact expression of the quality of consciousness 
was first formulated in Our Unseen Guest. Frame- 
works of argument for specific details I have sometimes 
borrowed—as Geley on instincts; and Professor Clif- 
ford Farr on the distinctions between living and non- 
living creatures. To them and to the unnamed—and 
in some cases forgotten—who have supplied mental 
aliment, I make my bow. 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from | 
Princeton Theological Seminary Library 


https://archive.org/details/credoOOwhit . 


PREFACE 


This book is intended to fulfill three divergent 
functions. It is an attempt to aid in the orienta- 
tion among the bewildering new conditions of the 
century: it is an attempt to admit fresh ventilation 
to modern thought: it is a stretching exercise. 
Its result I hope will be to help the average man 
define his own beliefs. 













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ea) (Teta Age base | Ay aaa ee i 


CREDO 





CREDO 


CHAPTER I 
I 


T some period in his life every thinking 
man must establish his own basic rela- 
tions with the universe, or remain rest- 

less, discontented, and unhappy. He must get 
himself a genuine belief. A great many people do 
not do this, to be sure; but it must be acknowledged 
that a great many people go into an increasingly 
discontented old age. 

Not long ago, at a dinner party, a woman and 
a typical square-jawed, literal-minded, bull-dog 
business man happened to touch upon religion. 
The man was stating impatiently that he could not 
find in theology or the literal doctrines of the 
church much that he could accept. 

‘Do you find you can get on satisfactorily with- 


out religion’” asked the woman. 
I 


2 CREDO 


“That's just it!’ he cried, surprisingly, “J 
can tl” 

This man had come to a realization of the 
necessity for search; but—as yet—had got no 
further. There are at the present day thousands 
upon thousands like him. 

What is this pressing necessity, in fundamental? 
It is the necessity in some way, satisfactory to each 
particular person, to account for things. Man 
must explain the universe, as far as he isable. He 
must define it. He must try to make rational its 
make-up, and its laws, and the trend of its move- 
ment. He must determine his own place in that 
universe, and his relation to it. And, above all, 
if he cannot account to himself for its origin and 
its purpose, he must at least be satisfied that its 
remote inceptions are an orderly projection in the 
past, and that it has a purpose. ‘To make the job 
of living worth while, in deeper satisfaction, he 
must ask himself what it means, and he must have 
made a serious effort to answer. 

His efforts at the answer are recorded in the 
mass of known science, and in a great multitude 
of beliefs. All are equally parts of the great 


CREDO 3 


attempt to place himself, and to find out what it is 
all about. 

Now I am going to make a statement that may 
at first seem paradoxical. All faiths that have 
been sincerely worked out in the travail of a 
spirit groping toward this necessity, and have been 
sincerely believed, have been at some time true, 
no matter how false later progress may have shown 
them to be. That is not quite as foolish as it 
sounds. Every formulation that has held man- 
kind’s full credence has been based upon, or 
contained to the extent of its capacity, certain 
simple fundamental truths which are invariably 
the same. I shall not attempt to name them here. 
The change of creeds, the abandonment of old 
beliefs and the adoption of new, have been rather 
the extension, the expansion, the enrichment of 
these fundamental truths. The new creed sees in 
no respect a different truth, but simply more of 
the old truth. We are finding, not a new magnetic 
north, but a fresh orientation necessitated by the 
fact that we have shifted our position. If we 
have not changed our position, we need no orienta- 
tion. 


4 CREDO 


We are happy in mind, and we do our jobs 
effectively—whatever they may be—only when we 
have figured out what it is all about fo the extent 
necessary to satisfy us. We may, if we are a 
primitive people, be satisfied to account for things 
between markers set very close together, and we 
may be perfectly content to take on trust—“on 
faith”—whatever lies outside of these markers. 
But it may be said with confidence that between 
them must lie all the facts of our exact knowledge. 
If some of these facts stand outside the markers, 
unrelated, unaccounted for, we are never really 
at ease with ourselves. That is why our credos 
change and grow; because we are constantly 
learning more and more. With our increased 
body of knowledge the old faiths become inad- 
equate. That by no means implies that the old 
faiths are “untrue,” in the sense that it is untrue 
that fire is cold. It only means that as avenues 
of approach toward the portion of fundamental 
truth we are capable of containing they are no 
longer open. A road is a road as long as it leads 
somewhere and is passable. It ceases to be a road 
otherwise. Fire may be cold in relation to the 
incandescence of a star. Details of creed become 


CREDO 5 


ridiculous to us only because we no longer see 
through them to the living thing, because they no 
longer in any way represent to us what in essence 
they have represented to others. We merely 
have different mechanisms, so to speak, to make us 
aware of exactly the same thing these “ridiculous” 
beliefs revealed to those others. 

There we touch the difference between absolute 
and relative; which is, I admit, an extremely 
abstruse consideration, and almost impossible for 
the human and individualistic mind to grasp 
practically. We are inclined to reason that a 
specific thing either is so, or is not so; and if our 
superior knowledge of fact tells us that it is 
manifestly impossible that human life, for ex- 
ample, is conditioned by the arbitrary intervention 
of a theocracy of personal gods and goddesses 
living on Mt. Olympus, we state categorically that 
those who so believed were dwelling in complete 
error. I purposely take an example from the non- 
controversial past; though the same reasoning 
could be quite well applied to the present day. 
We could with greater justice admit that in his 
personal gods the Greek was seeing clearly just so 
much of certain cosmic influences as the needs of 


6 CREDO 


his state of development required. We need and 
see and use a greater portion of those influences, 
perhaps, and see them in different form; but they 
are identically the same influences in kind, and 
they orient us in the same direction. 

“Oh, yes,” you will often hear someone say, 
“There was a Jot of truth in most of those old 
beliefs. What people don’t understand is that a 
great deal of it was allegorical.” 

That is not it at all. A great deal of them have 
become allegorical. But at the time they were 
true, literally true, as respects what then shone 
through them and for which they stood as rep- 
resentation. 


et 


The present time has produced a new need for 
Orientation. Our position has shifted enormously. 
We have been learning so rapidly that almost more 
things stand outside the old limit markers than are 
included within. Evolution is one of the big 
things; and the processes by which it is carried on, 
—especially the proof of mutation. Evidently, in 
view of the latter, the old Darwinian theory of 
satisfactorily unbroken succession will not do. 


CREDO 7 


The Missing Link is missing because he never was. 
The spark leaped a gap. How could that hap- 
penr ‘The electron is another of the big things, by 
which apparently matter is to be reduced to a 
single thing, and that thing a force. Chemical- 
psychology—or psychological-chemistry, which- 
ever you please—has opened a whole world of 
parallelism, behaviourism, mechanistic response; 
which many people seem to fear is final. Psychi- 
cal research is slowly de-occultizing the “sacred” 
to the combative dismay of many who seem to 
think a “miracle” is any less a miracle because it 
can be understood. The microscope, the tele- 
scope, the spectroscope, in the swift development 
of their modifications and improvements in deli- 
cacy, have revealed a huge catalogue of unex- 
pected and somewhat disconcerting facts. Things 
are not quite as we supposed them. ‘They will not 
take their places inside the old limit markers. 
Now all these things are tremendously fascinat- 
ing. As soon as they are translatable to common 
speech they—or some specialty from among them 
—are eagerly seized upon by the man in the street. 
Truth is not only stranger than fiction; it is more 
interesting than fiction. Given a specialist who 


8 CREDO 


has sufficiently surrounded and digested some as- 
pect of his subject so that he can tell it in common 
speech, he is sure of an audience. Digested and 
understood science does not need to be abstruse, 
except one desires to follow processes of arrival as 
well as results. Dr. Milliken on the electron, Sir 
Oliver Lodge on the ether of space, Fabre or Mae- 
terlinck on the polity of the insect world, Sir Ar- 
thur Keith on the mechanism of the human body, 
to mention but a few, are as clear as crystal and 
interesting to even the seasoned novel reader, if 
one can induce that person to make a start. Thom- 
son’s Outline of Science has already gone through 
innumerable editions. 

But also these things are terribly disconcerting 
to the old beliefs. ‘They cannot fail to be for they 
present a great variety of things unaccounted for 
in the specific terms of the old faiths. 

To be sure there are a great many to whom this 
orientation presents no difficulty. ‘They are able 
to recognize that their old creed does actually com- 
prehend these new things in what seems to others 
an allegorical sense; but which to them is still a 
real sense. They have moved closer to the old 
laws, as one might say, in order to cover a wider 


CREDO 9 


field. ‘They are satisfied that the cosmos—includ- 
ing these new things—is still accounted for in the 
old formulations. Therefore they are happy in 
the terms of their religion, to which they are still 
able to accord that full and heartfelt belief that is 
necessary to happiness. 

But the most of us have not that beautiful power 
of interpretation. We require things to be more 
specifically stated. Meaning, perhaps, comes to 
us more through the words of ordered thought 
than through the subtler channels of spiritual 
perception. A new formulation, a new orienta- 
tion is imperatively necessary; and until it is 
gained that necessity urges us. 


Ill 


It is a real necessity, and a driving necessity. 
Until we have accounted for things we cannot go 
on, either individually or collectively; not with 
any satisfaction to ourselves nor benefit to the 
scheme of things. I presume in due course we 
will make what might be called a new formulation 
that will resemble a creed—something which the 
majority of us will be satisfied fits all the basic 
facts we have attained to at this time; something 


IO CREDO 


elastic enough also to adjust to individual points 
of view. It will be true, just as the gods of 
Olympus were true. In the meantime each in- 
dividual must do his best to work it out for himself. 

This is an attempt to set forth how one man has 
worked it out for himself. It is offered as what 
seems to him a rational accounting for things 
inside the limit markers of his present knowledge. 
Perhaps it may appeal to others and so help them 
to settle in an orientation spot from which they 
also can satisfactorily contemplate life, and by 
which they can ascribe to it a reasonable meaning. 
Perhaps it may suggest to still others elements 
which will help them in their own construction. 
It is my formulation, satisfactory to myself, at the 
present time, of the fundamentals expressed in 
terms of present day knowledge. 

Now any belief, no matter how crude, always 
has to do with the nature of things. So must this. 
And as we have by no means reached the limit of 
our exact knowledge of things themselves, any 
belief must go beyond exact knowledge. It will 
always be that way. We must have the courage 
to extend our straight lines into outer space. It is 
not always sufficient to stick to the weighed and 


CREDO II 


measured facts. We must postulate probabilities; 
as science has postulated the ether which all 
attempted experiment has as yet failed to prove, 
as the atom has been proved. Yet the atom was a 
pure postulation of the Greeks. The only real 
proof of any belief must be what might be called 
the cosmic satisfaction it conveys. Its only pos- 
sible criterion can be as to whether or not it fits the 
case, fully and completely and convincingly. 

The following view of the nature of things has 
come to satisfy me, at least as a temporary belief. 
Perhaps there will be some who have reached 
the same position as myself. Or perhaps—what 
is more likely—something here expressed may 
help others to reach their own position. 


CHAPTER II 


HE first question that man asks of him- 
self has to do with the nature of the 
things about him. The one fact he is 

sure of is that of his own existence. He can state 
with conviction Jam. ‘That is the bedrock bottom 
of his certainty, and is common to all philosophies. 

But soon he discovers in one way or another that 
this is not sufficient. His self-awareness depends 
on the existence of other things from which to be 
different. He cannot conceive of himself as 
deprived of all external correspondence whatever. 
His curiosity as well as his self-interest demands 
that he first of all account for these things, by 
which he is surrounded, and to which he reacts. 
What are they? What relation do they bear to 
each othere Whence came they? What place 
among men does he himself occupy? 


These questions he must answer according to his 
2 


CREDO 13 


capacity and within the limit markers he sets for 
himself intelligently, or which are set for him by 
his limitations. Most limits are of the latter class, 
and he is unaware of their existence until they have 
been overpassed and he can look back at them. 
But some he deliberately sets for himself. A 
familiar and early example of that is exhibited by 
the child looking upward to the sky. He can- 
not conceive of there being no end to the space 
directly above his head; and yet at the same time, 
if he limits it with a wall, he cannot conceive of 
there being no space beyond the wall. ‘There 
can be no end, and yet the nature of his mind 
demands anend. Never does he puzzle long over 
that matter before deliberately he plants one of his 
markers. It is an insoluble riddle. He gives it 
up, and turns his attention nearer home. 

He looks about him more closely, and sees that 
the world does not appear to be functioning very 
well. There is pain, and injustice, and cruelty, 
and war, and fruitless labour, and poverty, and the 
iron necessities of heredity. Things seem to be in 
a mess. And yet some instinct within him 
continues to hope, and some force within him con- 
tinues to struggle. Are that instinct and that 


14 CREDO 


force real things? Are they justifiable? If so, 
how? What is it all about? 

All serious philosophic or religious systems 
occupy themselves with an attempt to answer these 
questions. They vary much in character and 
direction, they succeed because of the truth they 
contain, and they wane and finally disappear 
because they have viewed the truth from too 
narrow an angle. They have too much occupied 
themselves with one aspect, ignoring many others 
that must be taken into consideration for even an 
approximate balance. Religion of the middle 
ages thus ignored or denied the facts of science. 
Science until very recently has not taken into 
consideration the imponderables: it is beginning 
to do so only reluctantly, partially, and in special 
directions. Mysticism has not satisfied. Man 
thinks he rejects pure mysticism because it is not 
clearly connected with the solid life that is his 
job. In reality he rejects it, as he finally has 
rejected other answers, because it is speaking 
only in terms of itself, because it fails to take 
into consideration—to account for—all the 
others. 

Nevertheless mysticism is an essential part of 


CREDO is 


the Answer. I mean true mysticism in its precise 
definition ; I do not mean vagueness or “fuzziness,” 
which is what the word connotes to most. With- 
out it as a component part in proper proportion 
we have only a mechanism which does not explain 
even itself. The greater scientists themselves have 
never attempted to dispose of mysticism. They 
have not argued fora final mechanism. A careful 
reading of Huxley, Tyndall, Spencer—the leading 
originators of the scientific attitude—will show 
that in the last analysis they advocated the rigid 
use of materialistic accuracy and concentration on 
materialistic research in order at last to translate 
the essential mysticism into the terms of the known. 
The symbols of the known are the symbols of 
science. When all is said and done, when all the 
measurements and weighings, and determinations 
of exact science—whether in chemistry, physics, 
psychology and their kin—are for the moment 
finished ; when, again for the moment, we know all 
we can know about the physical constitution of 
that by which we are surrounded and of which we 
are a part, then we must tackle once more the real 
problem, that of expressing the essential mysticism 
in the terms of science, in the terms of the known. 


16 CREDO 
That is the only language we can speak which 
will ultimately satisfy us. 


I] 


Stripped to the bone we try to know things along 
three lines—what is the material of which we and 
the things about us are mader What is the life 
that animates them? What is the consciousness 
by which we become aware of them and of our- 
selves? We have no ultimate knowledge of any 
of these things, but we have pushed back consid- 
erably our limit markers of relative knowledge. 
Are we justified in considering the lines of our 
knowledge as straight lines which can with 
confidence be theoretically extended? Do they 
tend to converge? 

Whatever the answer, this does seem to me 
indisputable; that the truth cannot be expressed 
wholly in terms of any one of the three. Not with 
the sort of satisfaction I have called cosmic, the 
sort that carries with it a sense of the deeper as 
distinguished from the intellectual conviction. 
The mechanistically inclined scientist may be 
inescapably pushed by the logic of what he sees 
and knows to a conviction of a wholly material 


CREDO 17 


and mechanistic universe; but he accepts his 
conclusion sadly and with reluctance. The the- 
ological doctrinaire whose literalness does violence 
to his common sense leads a divided existence 
wherein his workaday life is paralleled by an ideal 
but “impractical” religion. He believes the Ser- 
mon on the Mount with one half of himself, and 
does business with the other. To be satisfying the 
Answer must comprehend frankly and fully all 
that we know. 


III 


In order even to state the problem to ourselves, 
then, we are forced to review, however briefly, 
what we do know. And at once we are astounded 
at the extent to which science has of late done its 
share toward producing what we might call 
handleable simplicities. 

Not long ago we had our seventy-two “irre- 
solvable” elements of which the physical universe 
was composed. ‘These were separate and distinct 
and unlike things, whose combination made all 
other substances. They themselves must have 
been “created” as individual things. We had 
gained, to be sure, an insight into their structure. 


18 CREDO 


They were made up of molecules which were in 
turn composed of atoms. But these molecules and 
atoms were themselves the same substance as the 
element. We had hydrogen atoms, and uranium 
atoms and tellurium atoms, and so on. ‘They 
represented rather the limits of minuteness into 
which a given substance could be divided, rather 
than the material of which that substance was 
made. 

But within a fairly recent date the discovery of 
the electron has upset this earlier conception. Let 
us attempt to strip the subject of its technical 
aspects, and see if we cannot make a simple picture 
that will not be too inaccurate. 

The atom, it seems, is composed of constituents 
even smaller than itself; and these constituents 
are all the same thing even for the atoms of 
diverse elements. Furthermore these constituents 
seem to be—at least predominantly—forces rather 
than substances. They are positive and negative 
charges of electricity. We have called these 
charges of electricity out of which the atoms of 
definite substances are made, electrons and protons, 
or nuclei. The electron is the negative charge, 
and the proton is the positive charge. 


CREDO 19 


How then do these electrons and protons, which 
are in turn only one thing, manage to combine to 
produce the eighty-eight known elements, from 
whose combinations in turn are made up the thou- 
sands of substances in our cosmos? 

It is a question of number, and perhaps of speed. 
Around a nucleus consisting of a positive charge 
revolve in orbits, like infinitesimal solar systems, 
a greater or smaller number of electrons. This 
number, and arrangement, and—as we have said,— 
perhaps the speed of revolution, determine the 
atom.’ Thus hydrogen, the simplest of all ele- 
ments, is composed of a proton around which, in a 
circular orbit, revolves one electron. The most 
complicated atom, that of uranium, is a system in 
which ninety-two electrons revolve in intricate or- 
bits about the central nucleus. Between the two 
there is practically an unbroken progression. The 
hydrogen atom, as we have seen, is composed of a 
single electron revolving about its nucleus, pro- 
ton: helium of two; lithium of three; glucinum of 

1The number of revolving electrons, strictly speaking, indicates 
the amount of the positive changes in the nucleus, and under certain 
conditions may vary or be absent—as when the nucleus is positively 


electrified. However, in normal condition the above statement is cor- 


rect, and will be retained for the sake of clarity. 


20 CREDO 


four; and so on. A few gaps exist. We do not 
know of any atom composed of forty-three elec- 
trons revolving about the nucleus; nor of seventy- 
five; nor of eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-seven, 
and eighty-nine. But as the progression is other- 
wise unbroken, it is reasonable to suppose that we 
shall somewhere in the physical universe discover 
elements to correspond. Indeed we have already 
filled in some of the gaps that existed when the list 
was first made out. Cromium is a case in point. 
No element made up of atoms whose composition 
is of twenty-four electrons in revolution was known 
until it was first determined as existing in the sur- 
face of the sun. 

However that may be, it is important to observe 
that atoms of the most diverse substances differ 
from each other only in the number—and possibly 
the speed—of free electrons revolving in the orbit 
of their miniature solar systems. If by some 
means copper were to lose one of its electrons it 
would become nickel; or if it were to gain one 
from some outside source it would become zinc. 
A true transmutation would have taken place. 

So much has been thoroughly proved. We 
average men find difficulty at first in comprehend- 


CREDO 21 


ing how a thing like the electron can possibly be 
weighed and counted and measured. If we could 
expand everything in our world except ourselves 
to ten billion times its present size, an atom would 
be about three feet in diameter, but the electrons 
in it would be only about as big as a pin head! 
That such a thing can actually be handled by 
scientific instruments almost strains our credulity. 
Nevertheless it has not only been done in a variety 
of ways, but the results have been repeated in vari- 
ous laboratories all over the world. Though the 
processes are in themselves fascinating, we cannot 
go into them here. ‘The reader, if interested, must 
go to original sources.’ 

Beyond the proven facts are certain speculations 
so reasonable that we may with considerable 
confidence adopt them as working hypotheses, and 
may look forward to their ultimate proof. This 
transmutation by the addition to or the subtraction 
from the number of free electrons in an atom of 
matter is constantly taking place. It has also been 
noted that the more complex the structure of the 
atom, the heavier it is. There appears to be a 


1 Suggested: Milliken—The Electron. Lodge—The Electron. Rus- 
sell—The ABC of Atoms. 


22 CREDO 


gradual building up, a sort of inorganic evolution. 
Each element may have sprung from the element 
next simpler. Antimony with fifty-one electrons 
may by the addition of one more have given birth 
to tellurium with fifty-two; and antimony may 
therefore well have preceded tellurium in the 
history of the universe. Thus we may logically 
conceive of the physical cosmos as at first con- 
sisting of hydrogen only; then of hydrogen and 
helium; then of hydrogen, helium and lithium, and 
so on. Since this progressively complex type of 
evolution has been found to obtain botanically, 
zoologically, psychologically,—indeed in about all 
fields of investigation—it is more than probable 
that it also obtains in pure physics. This view 
receives also considerable experimental corrobora- 
tion. 

But in the dazzlement of this brilliant new light 
of knowledge we must not be blinded to the fact 
that we have rather a simplification than anything 
resembling an ultimate explanation. It is very 
difficult to conceive of “atoms of electricity as a 
pure disembodied force,” without some vehicle of 
manifestation, however attenuated. Many phys- 
icists try to explain protons and electrons as 


CREDO 23 


vortices in the ether of space. As it is obvious that 
a vortex can be either right or left handed, there 
ig room in this hypothesis for the two sorts of 
electricity—positive and negative; the proton and 
theelectron. In that case we still have our duality. 
It is pushed very far back, but it still exists: the 
ether that revolves, and the energy that revolves it. 
~' And we still must inquire as to what sets that 
revolution in motion. The vehicle of manifesta- 
tion has attenuated almost to the vanishing point, 
where before it has held an equal importance; the 
force has become important almost to the usurpa- 
tion of the whole field. The primal cause is as 
mysterious as ever. 


IV 


There is an interesting corollary which we 
should not pass by. We have said that there seems 
to be an organic evolution by which an increasing 
complexity of substance is produced in orderly se- 
quence by the addition of electrons to already 
existing simpler atoms. There is also indubitably 
an accompanying simplification, a breaking down 
of the complex atom. Indeed it is the latter 
process, rather than the former, of which we are 


24 CREDO 


most cognizant in process. We can observe and 
evaluate the release of energy this activity brings 
about; we are gauging its effects in all directions; 
and we are coming more and more to a utiliza- 
tion of what we have loosely designated as one 
form of radio activity. For that is what the 
simplification of substance amounts to. Probably 
every bit of matter in the universe—irrespective 
of its kind—displays to a greater or lesser degree 
some radio activity. That is to say constantly 
from the incredible trillions of electrons that 
compose its mass a certain relatively small number 
are continually disengaging themselves and flying 
forth. The release of energy thus brought about; 
the collisions, the reamalgamations, the various 
hazards and ultimate fate of these adventurers 
is not our concern justnow. But were this process 
unhindered or unmodified, there must come a 
point when enough of them will have been with- 
drawn sufficiently to have altered the proportion 
between the number of electrons and the central 
nucleus in the atoms of that particular substance 
so that the substance itself will change to a simpler 
substance. This must in the nature of things 


CREDO 26 


be brought about very gradually, so gradually 
that we cannot say that it takes place under 
our eyes. An analogy might be realized by 
imagining two ten thousand gallon tanks of water 
balanced at either end of a gigantic beam. One 
of the tanks leaks,a drop atatime. Naturally not 
one drop, nor two, nor ten thousand will affect the 
equilibrium of the tanks; but if the leak continues 
long enough it is inevitable that sooner or later 
the beam will incline. In a similar manner, 
although it is probable that every substance of 
which the universe is composed is radioactive— 
is constantly sending forth its stream of free 
electrons—nevertheless the amount sent forth is 
so small proportionately to the whole that the 
equilibrium of the substance is not immediately 
destroyed. There is a tendency, however, and 
perhaps a process of a breaking down from the 
complex heavier atom to the simpler lighter atom. 
Mercury tends by this means to become gold; gold, 
platinum; platinum, iridium; and so on down the 
list. 

Thus we see two processes constantly going on, 
a building up from the simpler structures to the 


26 CREDO 


complex; and a breaking down or dissolving the 
complex into the simple. Both are processes 
natural to, inherent in, the composition of matter 
itself. 


V 


It seems to be evident that at this period in time 
the first process has the preponderance. We have 
charted our evolution sufficiently to understand 
that anything we examine, whether solar systems or 
animal life, whether chemical constituent or mind, 
has invariably started its career in simplicity and 
worked up through constant accretion and special- 
ization to a present complexity. Furthermore 
that process is continuing to a further com- 
plexity. That is what we have understood by 
evolution. Whatever coincidental breaking down 
of atoms—or anything else—there may have been 
or may be, the building up is so far in excess that 
the net result is more things and more complicated 
things rather than less things and simpler things. 
Physical manifestations—or, indeed, mental or 
psychical manifestations—are more numerous as 
time goes on. 

Nevertheless as a natural property of matter as 


CREDO 27 


we know it, and not at all as what we call 
degeneration, the possibility of simplification ex- 
ists. Just as the eighty odd physical elements 
seem, from one point of view, to have been built 
up step by step from a simple opposition of one 
electron and a positively charged nucleus to ninety- 
two electrons and a nucleus; so it is entirely 
possible, by the orderly and continuous dispersion 
of electrons in radio activity, for those presumably 
ninety-two elements successively to disappear. 
Beginning with uranium, the altering of balance 
might very well proceed down through UXa,, 
thorium, the unknown “89”, radium and the rest, 
until once more we theoretically contemplate 
hydrogen with its simple “‘one and one”’ structure 
as the last remaining element of all. As our 
evolution has proceeded from the extremely simple 
to the complex; so, by the same law, it may be said 
to be capable of evolving from the complex to the 
simple. 

No philosophical view that does not take this 
into “count may be considered even approx- 
imately complete. And once we begin to take it 
into account we inevitably come upon a swarm of 
analogies. Indeed so numerous and universal are 


28 CREDO 


the analogies that we are almost forced to acknow!}- 
edge the justness of their application. It is in 
essence the rounding of the circle. A man leaves 
home, and travels and adventures for many years, 
and returns at last to the exact point from which he 
started. He reads in youth one of the fundamen- 
tal books—such as the Bible—and goes forth into 
the experience of life where he acquires wisdom; 
and reads again but with a new illumination the 
very same printed pages. He starts with the bare 
outlines of hypothesis, he loses himself in a maze 
of detailed experiment, he emerges at last with a 
clear scientific statement of fifty words. He 
accepts blindly a faith, and abandons its literalness, 
and makes his many studies and his first-hand 
observations, and returns with understanding to his 
faith again. Always this is to be noted; that 
though he returns it is always with a gain and an 
interpretation. The point to which he returns is 
the same from which he departed; but it is 
enriched and illuminated by his swing around the 
circle. The original simplicity is regained; but 
it is a simplicity p/us the complex. 

There seems scant need of elaborating this, for 
it is within the personal knowledge of every human 


CREDO 29 


being who has at all developed. Indeed, so 
universal is the experience that we are fairly 
justified in saying that any experience or subject 
of knowledge or faith that cannot be stated clearly 
in simple terms has not rounded out its circle, has 
not emerged from the complexity of its apogee to 
the simplicity of its perigee. A man still lost in 
the complicated is still on his journey, as far as that 
particular phase or subject is concerned. 

But the immediate point of consideration is this: 
that if, as seems probable, the substantial universe 
as we See it, is going to be subject in time—by the 
action of the laws we have outlined—to a resim- 
plification in material, so that gradually it will 
dissolve and disappear, that process will not be a 
death nor degeneration in the sense of a loss. It 
will be merely a closing of the circle, the regaining 
of simplicity with a function fulfilled. In the 
cycle of a great plan beyond the limit markers of 
our understanding it will be a return home with 
understanding. 


CHAPTER III 


EFORE going on to examine further what 
we know about the matter from the 
physicist’s standpoint, let us approach it 

from the other two angles—that of life, and of 
consciousness. 

But we do not wish, as yet, to go very far into 
our examination of them; that will come later. 
For the moment it is sufficient to advance the 
concept that all things are alive, and that all things 
have consciousness, of some degree or another. 

To some that concept will seem almost self- 
evident; to most it will appear to be ridiculous. 
It is entirely a question of the point of view, and 
largely of definition. : 

We have become accustomed to speak of “live 
things” and “dead things,’ and we know pretty 
well what we mean when we use these terms. 
But they are terms of convenience, merely, and not 

30 


CREDO 31 


of exact definition. Indeed, they will not bear the 
simplest analysis. 

Pressed to define living things the child or the 
primitive will reply vaguely that “live things can 
move saboute) but. tiete are, the *plants. s)he 
definition and its refutation seem to us equally 
simple. Yet amore sophisticated attempt to draw 
the line between the living and the lifeless fares 
no better. There always interpose intermediary 
forms which will not fall under the terms of the 
definition, and which refuse to admit of a sharp 
division. 

Let us examine things from the point of view of 
mere structure. Are living things and lifeless 
things differently made? Yes, say some, living 
things have a cellular structure: lifeless things 
have not.’ This sounds interesting and possible. 
First of all, what is a cell? Classically a cell is a 
‘body of more or less uniform, definite shape and 
size, consisting of an enveloping layer (the 
plasma membrane) and an internal liquid (the 
cytoplasm), within which are two kinds of especial 
organs (the nucleus and vacuoles). But at once 
we are called to consider the blue-green alge, a 





1 Warr: The Mind of the Molecule. Atlantic Monthly, Oct. 1923. 


32 CREDO 


true plant, but without nuclei. Then there are the 
plasmodia of slime moulds. These also have no 
nuclei, and hence are not composed of cells in the 
classic sense. 

Suppose, then, as Farr suggests, we redefine the 
word cell, omitting the nucleus, and the item of 
approximate uniformity. ‘Then we could, for this 
purpose, say that a cell is a body consisting of a 
plasma membrane (the envelope), and cytoplasm 
(the internal liquid). But recent microscopic 
studies have shown us that even this will not do. 
There are junctures in the life-histories of certain 
bacteria—the malarial is one—when it is pure 
plasmodium; and some fungi, among plants, are 
supposed by many botanists to pass through a 
similar state. And even more striking in this 
respect are what are called the filterable viruses. 
These viruses, as far as known, pass all their lives 
in a completely liquid condition, having no struc- 
tural form whatever; and yet they behave in about 
the same way as do similar microscopic organisms 
of orthodox cellular construction. 

So if we are to segregate living from lifeless in 
terms of cellular structure merely we are forced to 
redefine the cell as a liquid! In other words, the 


CREDO 33 


distinction, so far as structure is concerned, dis- 
appears. 

But these same filterable viruses open another 
door. No one has been able to determine any 
difference whatever in structure between them and 
the enzymes, and very little if any difference in 
their behaviour. Enzymes accomplish the diges- 
tive operations and other chemical changes in the 
body. They originate in living beings, but they 
may exist and operate outside of living beings. 
They are supposed to be colloids, and colloids 
have “no necessary connection with life, either in 
origin, existence, or behaviour. ‘They are simply 
definite aggregates of molecules of either organic 
or inorganic substances.’ Molecules, of course, 
are composed of atoms. 

Now with structure as the criterion where is one 
going todraw the line? Wehave cells, plasmodia, 
mycoplastic conditions, the filterable viruses, en- 
zymes, colloids, molecules, atoms. Considered 
structurally, which is which, and which is not? 


II 


How about chemistry? Can that help us out? 
Can its laboratories give us an analysis that will 


34 CREDO 


definitely establish the difference between the 
living and the lifeless? We have found that there 
is no structural difference between the “living” 
and the lifeless: is there a chemical difference? 
It appears not. At one time the theory was held 
that all living things were composed of one 
chemical compound which was named protoplasm. 
To-day it is known that protoplasm is, as far as 
chemistry is concerned, simply salts and water and 
various organic compounds, none of which, either 
alone or in combination, are peculiar to living 
things. In other words, every single chemical 
element that occurs in living things occurs also in 
lifeless things. There is no substance, or combina- 
tion of substances, of which we can say this is 
chemically stuff of which only “living” things are 
made. 


II] 


But there are other criteria which must be 
considered. We might say that a “living” thing 
is one that utilizes or produces food: that it 
is one that grows: that it is one that reproduces 
itself. 


CREDO 35 


The releasing of energy by the digestion of food 
can be very quickly dismissed. It is an oxidiza- 
tion, just as the burning of coal or wood is an 
oxidization. Both result in a release of energy. 
There is no clear cut dividing line here, even in 
process; for there seem to be “no intermediate 
steps taking place in organism which seems to be 
impossible elsewhere.” 

The manufacture of food has not been until 
recently quite so self-evident. It has seemed that 
only by life could the raw material of nature be 
turned into sustenance for other life. The vege- 
table kingdom has always been the great inter- 
mediary in this respect. But now certain chemists 
—among whom Emil Fischer, Stoklasa and Ewart 
are most prominently named—have in the past 
twenty years imitated chemically this process. 
The intermediation of life to produce food has 
been definitely proved to be theoretically unnec- 
essary, however practically important it may be. 

Similarly chemistry has succeeded in imitating 
or duplicating all the processes of the body having 
to do with absorption, conduction, secretion. 
Those processes are not the exclusive property of 


36 CREDO 


“living” things—unless all things are living. 
Neither is there here a clear dividing line. 

But how about growth? ‘That looks like a good 
basis for definition.. A living thing is capable of 
growth: a “lifeless” thing is not. Let us see. 

Growth consists of three things—cell division; 
cell enlargement; cell differentiation. These 
things have all been artificially imitated in non- 
living structures. ‘The stone of the field may not 
grow, but the type of matter of which it 1s com- 
posed is capable of growth. Furthermore, that 
very type of matter has been made to grow ex- 
perimentally. In other words, the material of 
which the stone is made is capable of growth. 
One cannot avoid the logic that if growth is a 
criterion of life, then anything capable of growth 
must be living, whether it exercises that capability 
ornot. Or else growth as a criterion must be dis- 
carded. 

The cell division type of growth Lehman dem- 
onstrated with liquid crystals. ‘These divide and 
subdivide exactly as do the cells of bacteria. 
Leduc’ also even produced artificially all the 
stages of nuclear division in colloids,—which, it 





1The Mechanism of Life. 


CREDO 37 


will be remembered, are classed as “‘lifeless’’ sub- 
stances.’ 

Cell enlargement is demonstrated in “non- 
living” matter through an artificial cell invented by 
Traube, and named after him. One way of mak- 
ing a Traube cell is by dropping a crystal of 
copper sulphate into a solution of potassium 
ferrocyanide—a purely chemical and mechanical 
procedure. ‘The result is a cell with a membrane, 
a contained “sap,” and a nucleus-like central crys- 
tal. This manufactured cell will enlarge and 
change shape in a most remarkable series of forms 
that simulate those of fungi, mosses, and even some 
of the lower animals. It follows conditions just 
as the “living” cell enlarges or changes form ac- 
cording to conditions. 

Yet scientists continue to raise interesting pets. 
Cell differentiation is another way of indicating 
internal structural change. It is not yet authori- 
tatively demonstrated that this can be done arti- 
Homily ct in 1929" Ore] we lens reported 
on the basis of experiments by Church and others, 
the sequence by which it seems more than probable 
that from sea water under the influence of light 


1 See also Bade in The Scientific American, March, 1922. 


38 0 GREED ® 


waves, certain living cells come into being, which 
divide and enlarge and develop swimming organs 
and feeding habits. So though this case is still 
in the experimental stage, cell differentiation also 
seems in a fair way to losing its distinctive quality 
as an attribute of “living” things. At the lowest 
it becomes a slender and isolated distinction on 
which to depend. | 
With these experiments the reproductive faculty 
falls into second importance as a distinguishing 
characteristic, for at its most primitive reproduc- 
tion is neither more nor less than cell division; and 
cell division, as we have seen, has been artificially 
induced in “non-living” structures. Nor need we 
be led astray by recent experiments that appear to 
show the bisexuality in what have been considered 
asexual entities. In the one celled animals—such 
as the paramoecium—and in the one celled 
plants—such as the diatom—two cells fuse to start 
the division into many. It has long been thought 
that these two fusing cells were identical. Now it 
is known by Blakselee’s experiments with certain 
of the moulds that the two fusing cells are phys- 
iologically different. He calls them plus and 





1See Appendix I. 


CREDO 39 


minus, and shows that a plus cell never fuses with 
a plus, nor a minus with a minus. He might as 
well have called them male and female. 

This sexual characteristic of reproduction 
might at first glance seem to promise a basis of 
distinction between the “living” and the “non- 
living.” It is necessary to examine whether the 
“non-living” does or does not parallel the same 
process. ‘There remains much work to be done 
in this field before the demonstration may be con- 
sidered exact; but the logical outline seems to be 
fairly well drawn. In purely chemical com- 
pounds the plus and minus have long been recog- 
nized. There are positive and negative ions, and 
no two positives can combine, nor two negatives. 
And we must not forget the ultimate constitution 
of matter in the electron and the proton,—the 
positive and the negative. If sex reproduction is 
to be considered a sole characteristic of “living” 
things, it would almost seem that the burden of 
proof is on that side. 


Ly 


So our analysis shows that no criterion we have 
as yet succeeded in formulating enables us to dis- 


40 CREDO 


tinguish anything whatever as being “living” or 
“non-living.” Every characteristic of the “liv- 
ing” thing is to be found or can be reproduced in 
the “non-living” thing, if not in degree then in 
kind. The property of life is in all types of mat- 
ter: 

Now, with all the foregoing clearly in mind, 
it would be well to go back to original definitions 
for a moment. In the ultimate, as the physicists 
have shown us, physical substance itself is reduced 
to a proton in equilibrium with a greater or lesser 
number of revolving electrons. ‘That revolution 
is taking place because of energy, force. With- 
draw the force, stop the revolution in the infin- 
itesimal orbit—were such a thing possible—what 
would happen? Necessarily the substance would 
be obliterated. No substance, however inert, can 
exist at all unless it is throughout every molecule, 
every atom of its being, vibrant with energy, with 
force. And this force can be no other than the 
vital principle,—life. It is of course an almost 
incredible simplification, when so viewed, as com- 
pared with the complex life that animates the 
human being. But so is primordial matter an al- 
most incredible simplification as compared with 


CREDO ol: eet 


the intricate substances of which the human body 
is composed. There is no difference. A lifeless 
thing is impossible. 


V 


The same considerations will be found to apply 
as to consciousness. At first blush we think we 
can define pretty accurately some things that have 
consciousness and others that have not. A man 
is conscious, a dog, an ant, or a bird or a bee. 
That is self-evident. A rock is not conscious, nor 
garden soil, nor a piece of wood: almost anybody 
would agree on that. How about a tree or a cab- 
bager 

Not many years ago there would have been no 
doubt on that point either. But now even the lay- 
man is not so certain. Some members of the veg- 
' etable kingdom seem to act as though they were 
conscious; that is, they not only conduct their daily 
life according to a complicated plan, but they 
modify and adapt themselves to circumstances in 
a most astonishing manner. They actually dis- 
play ingenuity. People talk about and write 
about the Intelligence of the Flowers as they write 
about the Intelligence of the Bee, and there is not 


42 CREDO 


a great deal of difference either in the sort of 
phenomena described nor in the apparently actu- 
ating motives. Both seem to feel and act from a 
common point which we call instinct in order to 
name and so get rid of it. A short time ago we 
should not have thought of ascribing anything so 
nearly rational as instinct to a plant. But in view 
of the resourcefulness, adaptability, and ap- 
parently original ingenuity in overcoming the un- 
expected which late observations have revealed to 
us, we cannot reasonably distinguish some of these 
activities in kind from the instinctive activities of 
the insects. And from that point of view it is 
difficult to deny to the flower at least a modicum 
of the same sort of instinctive consciousness we 
have already conceded to the bee. We shall have 
more to say of that later. 

This, of course, gets us nowhere. It is adduced 
here only to call attention to the fact that even in 
the average mind the limit of acknowledged con- 
sciousness has been pushed back and back, and is 
even now uncertain. 

But when one states that not only has a stone of 
the field or a bit of iron consciousness, but that 
it is the same sort of consciousness that you and I 


CREDO 43 


enjoy, then one’s sense of humour rises. It is not 
a proposition that can be accepted on sight. 
When made acceptable, it must be shown to be 
literally and not merely figuratively true. In or- 
der to understand, we must first of all define con- 
sciousness. 

Considered through its essence and not merely 
through its attributes, it may be defined quite 
simply as that power by which anything becomes 
aware of itself. We have dealt with that before. 
But in order to become aware of itself there must 
be an external thing from which it differs and to 
which it must be related. It is, in other words, 
by being aware of something different from one- 
self, that one knows that one is a separate being. 
Philosophically viewed that something different 
may conceivably be very close to the centre of be- 
ing—a mere subjective response to stimulus—but 
the stimulus must exist. The ultimate of certainty 
of which human thought is capable is the convic- 
tion that one is. J am. But that conviction can 
only come by the reaction of J am to something 
beside itself. 

That much is clear enough. But it must not be 
forgotten that to appreciate the existence of the 


44 CREDO 


something different some sort of apparatus is 
necessary. We must possess something to receive 
the stimulus. That also is self-evident. We will 
call this something, broadly, the ‘“awareness- 
mechanism.” 

Now turn the proposition inside out. We have 
seen that it is through its reaction to something 
outside itself by means of an awareness-mechanism 
that the J am is conscious. Conversely, it follows 
that a response to anything outside itself, through 
a mechanism, must imply consciousness. The 
conclusion is inescapable. It may be a degree 
of consciousness that is very slight as compared to 
the consciousness we know in ourselves. The 
quality of it may differ from our own as widely as 
the quality of the hydrogen atom differs from the 
quality of our flesh structure. But it is the same 
kind of consciousness; just as the electrons and 
protons that make up the hydrogen atom are the 
same kind of electrons and protons that make up 
our body cells. 

This much is clear enough, and would hardly 
be disputed. If we obtain through the physical 
mechanism of any entity a kick-back or reaction, 
I think we may fairly say that the entity may be 


CREDO 46 


said to be “aware” of the stimulus. The fact of 
its awareness is attested by the fact of its kick-back. 
That some of these reactions are extremely simple 
and are brought about by mechanical reflexes 
without—as far as we know—the intervention of 
intellectual intelligence does not really alter the 
case. The entity,—whatever it may be—holds 
within itself certain definite powers and also cer- 
tain definite potentialities which make it what it 
is. When one of these characteristics—which, I 
must repeat, are individual—is touched, the re- 
sponse is made. And no stimulus which has not 
its receiving mechanism in the entity can have any 
effect whatever. In other words, the entity is 
aware of some things and not of others.’ 


1] find many of those who have been kind enough to read this Mss 
confess to a confusion at this point. The simplest expression of this 
confusion may be thus stated: 

“Suppose I kick a stone. The stone will respond by rolling. 
That, according to your argument, would indicate consciousness be- 
cause of response. Yet the force applied was entirely my own, and 
the stone’s apparent ‘response’ was illusory.” 

The answer is, of course, that the stone’s response in rolling was 
not primarily to the kick, but to the force of gravitation. The kick 
merely supplied a condition. The true response was to the state 
of equilibrium. 

Another expression of the same difficulty was this: 

“Take the motor car. It moves and functions and reacts in 


46 CREDO 


Take any very simple and obvious specific ex- 
ample. The principle becomes plain at once. 
The normal human being has five developed 
senses by which he-responds to, is aware of, the 
physical world about him. Buta man born blind 
can be aware through only four of them. As 
far as his reactions are concerned colour and most 
properties of light do not exist at all. Neverthe- 
less light and colour continue to surround him. In 
the fact that he has no awareness-mechanism to 
deal with them he is individually different from 
his fellows. 

Now let us deprive him successively of hearing, 
of taste, of smell, leaving him only the sense of 
touch. Nevertheless—though in a very limited 
way—he is still cognizant of his own existence as 


response to law. Would you then say that the automobile is a 
conscious thing?” 

Certainly not, as an automobile. As a matter of fact, the machine 
is a cunningly assembled artificial aggregation of many sorts of 
responses,—of gasoline atoms to ignition, of mutual attractions of 
gravitation, of tensions, of response to the necessity for equilibrium, 
etc. One might say that a number of consciousnesses are harnessed 
together by man’s intelligence to produce a correlated result. The 
trouble really is that the readers have not sufficiently distinguished 
between mere awareness—as evidenced by reaction—and intellectual 
awareness, which is an entirely different thing of infinitely higher 


development. 


CREDO 47 


a separate and individual being. He handles 
things; he experiences pain when burned; he is 
aware of movement. But now take away his 
power as to this last. Paralyze his limbs com- 
pletely, yet leaving him the single and doubtful 
ability to receive sensory impressions. In none of 
these circumstances would we deny him what we 
call consciousness in even the narrow sense of the 
term. Through some awareness-mechanism, how- 
ever diminished, he receives stimuli and responds 
to them, even though that response is entirely sub- 
jective, in a manner to show that he is self-aware. 
Throughout all this process we have left him 
his intellectual power, and that has been an es- 
sential part of his awareness-mechanism. He has 
translated whatever diluted impressions he has 
been able to receive through an intellectual pro- 
cess, however abridged, into response, however 
feeble. Should we drug his brain into apathy, or 
by some other means sever it from supervision, we 
say that he has become unconscious, a being with- 
out consciousness. If then we touch his hand with 
a red-hot poker he, as an individual human entity, 
will fail to respond in any manner and will have 
ceased to be aware—simply because all physical 


48 CREDO 


awareness-mechanism lacks.1. If we restore to 
him the power of movement, but leave him other- 
wise as before, his hand will twitch, or he will 
snatch it away. We call that a reflex action, but 
still define him as a being without consciousness, 
when he is considered as a complete human en- 
tity. 

This course of reasoning must lead us provision- 
ally to define consciousness as response to outside 
influence, through an awareness-mechanism, via 
some degree of intelligence.” 

What, then, is intelligence? In the human be- 
ing as also, of course, in at least the higher animals 
and the birds, it has to do with the brain. It 
diminishes down through the animal kingdom to 
a very pinpoint of simplicity, but in careful anal- 
ysis the distinction holds good until we get into the 
invertebrate and the microscopic. But how about 
the brain of the jellyfish? the brain of the rotifer? 


1Of course as an aggregate of many smaller consciousnesses he 
still exists and is aware. Individual cells will respond, or individual 
aggregates of cells. His flesh can still be charred locally by fire; his 
finger will bleed. The restoration of the power of movement, indi- 
cated in the next sentence, merely shows a linking up of these sep- 
arate aggregations by a certain small portion of the central being. 

2 Not necessarily intellectual intelligence! 


CREDO 49 


Does it exist, as we define it in the bird, or even 
the fish or the reptile? If it does not exist, are 
these creatures then unaware of themselves as sep- 
arate individuals? 

If we insist on the intellectual criterion we can- 
not say. But the intellectual criterion has, in 
fact, long since proved untenable. All down the 
line the centre of significant reaction has been 
shifting from the brain to the spinal cord, from 
the spinal cord to the nerve centres. ‘The trans- 
ition has been gradual, the succession unbroken. 
We can fix no point at which we can definitely 
say, here intelligent action ceases and purely re- 
flex instinctive action begins. One fades into the 
other so imperceptibly that we cannot draw a line. 
Our conception of intelligence must broaden. It 
comes at last to mean merely a response that is 
fitting, is in accordance with the scheme of things, 
that follows and corresponds to and fulfils an in- 
‘ terplay in accordance with what we call natural 
law. 

It is an inexorable logic from which we cannot 
escape. And when we retrace our steps, climb- 
ing once again up the long series that leads from 
the simple to the complex, from the rotifer back to 


50 CREDO 


man again, we perceive that as each response of 
any mechanism is necessarily in accordance with 
the law of its own being, so the brain itself must 
be merely one kind of awareness-mechanism which 
responds according to the law of its being also. 
It produces one type of awareness by its reaction, 
according to its law, to what is outside itself. It 
gives a response—a very complicated response to 
be sure—to what can reach it; exactly as the tre- 
mendously simplified rotifer reacts in response to 
the few simple conditions that can affect it. The 
brain cannot react in any manner outside the 
laws of its structure and being: no more can the 
rotifer. 

In this view it is not the kind of reaction that is 
important, it is the fact of reaction. The rotifer 
is sensitive of the existence of something outside 
itself; and it shows, within the limits of its equip- 
ment, that it is sensitive by the fact that it alters 
its action or condition in consonance. Its prim- 
itive little organism shows by its expansion .or 
shrinking or change of function that it has re- 
ceived the impression, that its mechanism is aware 
of the impression, and that an attempt is made to 


CREDO 51 


modify to meet the new conditions. The brain in 
a similar manner shows that it is aware by the fact 
that it alters its functioning in consonance with the 
stimuli it receives. No more, no less; although 
its response is greatly intricate. 

Furthermore, even in the moronic rotifer as in 
the brain this modification is intelligent. It does 
tend to meet the conditions. The intelligence is 
not always infallible as respects any particular cir- 
cumstances—sometimes the whole effort is a com- 
plete failure. But nevertheless it is an intelligent 
movement, not a blind groping: and in the vast 
majority of cases it is accurate. 

I must not be understood as implying that this 
intelligence is a reasoned individual thing. It is 
sufficient to establish its presence in the situation. 
Intelligence is there. The law is ordered, ra- 
tional, reciprocating. Indeed it is intelligent be- 
yond the devisement of any individual human 
intelligence. We must try to examine later what 
it may be. But its presence in the compound is 
indubitable, just as the sensitive awareness- 
response is indubitable. That for the moment 
must suffice. 


52 CREDO 


VI 


This collection of elements for discussion— 
rather than for thesis—is strengthened by a return 
up another branch of evolution to a consideration 
of the vegetable kingdom. Indubitably the most 
complex plant is higher in the scale of develop- 
ment than the simplest animal. The sage, with its 
complicated system of counter-poised levers, 
pivots and traps to assure cross-fertilization is an 
infinitely complex being as compared with the 
infusorians or the one-celled protozoa. Life here 
has followed a different branch of evolution. 

To adduce many examples in plants of this sort 
of awareness-response, through an awareness- 
mechanism, to outside stimuli, in a manner to in- 
dicate the presence of intelligence, would consume 
too much space. The reader is advised to go to 
the library... A few examples must suffice here. 

It must be noted, first of all, that the lowest 
forms of animal life are absolutely indistinguish- 
able in characteristics and functions from the low- 





1 Maeterlinck—The Intelligence of the Flowers in The Measure of 
the Hours; Farr, Plant Psychology in Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1922; 
The Outline of Science; Herrick’s Wonders of Plant Life; Muiller’s 


Fertilization of Flowers will do to start on. 


CREDO 53 


est forms of plant life. ‘The englena and chlany- 
dunonos, for instance, behave almost exactly like 
protozoa, and are plants. Some forms are uncer- 
tain; no one knows whether they must be con- 
sidered as plants or as animals.’ 

Structurally, too, there is really no fundamental 
difference. Plants are cellular. The only differ- 
ence, there, is that sometimes the plant-cells con- 
tain plastides, which manufacture food, and that 
their walls are so rigid that they prevent the for- 
mation or development of motor tissues. ‘That is 
why plants cannot move about; why they cannot 
express themselves through motor activity. But 
they have definite sense-organs, some of them even 
more delicately responsive than man’s; in their 
sieve tubes they possess as adequate nervous systems 
continuous vehicles of impulse from the smallest 
root tendrils to the tips of the leaves; they form 
and break habits;—in short they exhibit all the 
elements of true consciousness according to our 
definition. 

Prof. Clifford Farr collects so beautifully ap- 

1The pedinella while floating nourishes itself in typical plant 


fashion: when fixed, by accidental running aground, it feeds as an 


animal on living organisms. See Appendix II. 


54 CREDO 


propriate a series of examples of these basic sim- 
ilarities that it seems worth while to repeat them 
here, though in abridged form. 

Man has his organ of equilibrium, which is a 
beautifully adjusted mechanism by which a decli- 
nation from the vertical of a few degrees is de- 
tected and compensated. ‘The plant possesses cer- 
tain root cells at the bottom of which rest small 
loose grains. When by inclination of the plant 
these roll anywhere except where they belong— 
accurately on the bottom—a message is thereby 
sent to a motor organism which at once sets the 
plant vertical again. And thereby an inclination 
of a very small fraction of one degree is instantly 
detected and rectified. AA man may be very con- 
siderably off-balance without becoming aware of 
it, but a plant cannot be pushed off its normal a 
fraction of an inch without being very much con- 
cerned about it. 

The extreme sensitiveness to touch is so well 
known that it need only be mentioned here. The 
varieties of flowers that close up tight on the light- 
est contact, the rarer plants that seize their prey, 
the delicate gropings and withdrawings of tendrils 
are all well known. So too with sensitiveness to 


CREDO gs 


light. We are all informed as to how sunflowers 
and many other blooms turn toward the sun; we 
are familiar with the blossoms that go to sleep at 
nightfall and awaken at daybreak. The finer 
microscopic reactions to light are not so famil- 
iar but are much more wonderful. They ful- 
fil many needs in the plant’s life history, and dem- 
onstrate the possession of especial and delicate 
sense-organs by which the plant becomes aware. 
Plants are more sensitive to pressure than we 
are; they are more sensitive to electrical stimuli. 
The weakest current we can become aware of 
amounts to about ten milliamperes: a plant’s root 
exposed to one twenty-five-thousandth of a mil- 
liampere will indicate its awareness of that minute 
current by curving in the direction of the cathode. 
It is a fact that in the human body there are cells 
more remote from a nerve than are any cells in a 
plant remote from its nerves—the sieve tubes. 
These things, from one point of view, may be 
classed as “‘reflex actions” of course—if that helps 
any. We have, I hope, done something toward 
wiping out any basic distinction, as far as pure con- 
sciousness is concerned, between reflex action and 
any other action. But in its sensitiveness to light 


56 CREDO 


the plant may be shown to construct habits. In 
other words a psychic thing—a habit—may be 
shown capable of counteracting a “mechanical 
physical response.” Place a marigold in darkness 
during the day, and expose it to illumination at 
night—a direct reversal of its usual life. In about 
a week’s time it will have acquired a new habit of 
opening at night and closing during the day. But 
it will not do so within the first twenty-four hours, 
nor in forty-eight. Now by further experiment 
of the same sort it may gradually be induced to 
take on eight-hour shifts of opening and closing. 
‘But if the attempt is further pursued, and an ef- 
fort is made to shorten the periods to four hours, 
then the marigold, as if in disgust, gives it all up 
and returns to its old twelve hour periods, irre- 
spective of how you manipulate the lights. Here 
we come very close to placing plant consciousness 
within even the classic psychological definitions— 
though that, we must repeat, is not necessary for 
our thesis. Psychologists define consciousness as 
“emerging when reflex acts will not meet the needs 
of a situation.”” When we reverse the illumina- 
tion we have an instance of the reflex act not meet- 
ing the situation, for during the first night of 


CREDO 57 


illumination the petals remained closed. The 
plant has encountered a new situation, outside its 
own or its ancestor’s experience, and it takes time 
for adjustment. 

The deeper we delve into this most fascinating 
subject the more thoroughly are we convinced that 
we cannot deny the vegetable kingdom conscious- 
ness within the terms of our definition. It pos- 
sesses awareness, through an awareness-mechanism. 
The fact that its mechanism has carried the stim- 
ulus is indicated by the fact of its response accord- 
ing to the laws of its individual being. The re- 
sponse is intelligent. 

Nor must we too hastily deny the plant at least 
the rudiments of psychical consciousness in the 
narrower sense of the term. ‘That consciousness 
is admittedly rudimentary as compared to man’s, 
or the higher animals. But then the consciousness 
of Tony-in-the-ditch is admittedly rudimentary as 
compared with that of a great poet or a great 
musician or a great scientist. He is actually 
aware of an appallingly less number of things, and 
he is not so keenly aware of those things he knows. 

Pleasure, in essence, is defined as a return to 
equilibrium; pain as a departure from equilib- 


58 CREDO 


rium. oIfsthaty is) the. ‘case;;the!\ plantgaaamis 
marvellous and delicate adjustments and compen- 
sations must feel pleasure and pain. Strike the 
leaf of a sensitive plant sharply and it will shrink 
away and curl up as though distressed; stroke it 
gently and it will curve upward to meet the finger. 
Fanciful perhaps: perhaps not. 


VII 


Keeping in mind this successive diminution in 
degree, though not in kind; and applying the 
same criteria; let us go farther down the scale, on 
a sort of slumming trip as a cure for snobbishness. 
It is most important not to forget that we must 
anticipate a progressive simplification. If we go 
far enough we must not permit ourselves to expect 
more than a rudiment, a germ, a potentiality of 
what we find fully and elaborately exemplified 
further up. It has been so in our investigation of 
substance, where the two hundred and fifty thou- 
sand or so things which it is estimated our known 
cosmos contains have been gradually refined down 
to eighty-odd elements. When we say that a stone 
has consciousness, or a piece of iron, we do not 
need to endow it with all the attributes of con- 


CREDO 59 


sciousness that we find fully developed in a hu- 
man being. ‘That would be as absurd as to pred- 
icate of ‘Tony-in-the-ditch a knowledge of astron- 
omy. 

Let us see what happens when a stone comes 
into relation with something outside itself. The 
alternating influences of frost, rain, and sun in 
turn exert themselves upon it. The rock splits. 

We explain this phenomenon by ascribing it to 
“the action of natural law.” Of course this is a 
correct statement as far as it goes. But what is 
that except another way of saying that certain 
ordered processes under the law have obtained 
from that stone a response, an indication of aware- 
ness, according to the mechanism of its very prim- 
itive being? The stone has become aware of the 
fact that it has been acted upon. How do we 
know that? Because it has split. The splitting 
is the manifestation of its awareness, its response 
to something outside itself. 

Or if it objected that this is a negative yielding 
to force rather than a positive action,—as if one 
should push the stone, and ascribe its rolling to 
itself rather than to the push’—consider the 





1See footnote p. 45. 


60 CREDO 


recuperation of metal after fatigue. Iron under 
repeated stress becomes wearied, sometimes to the 
danger point of giving way entirely. But given 
a period free from stress and it recuperates, re- 
habilitates itself, becomes rested. It tends to 
recover its equilibrium; and in the process the 
microscopist of poetic vision might see the dulled, 
blind, painful gropings of a consciousness infinitely 
simple, torpid, frozen fast in the inert and stubborn 
material body of its manifestation—yet big with 
dreams. 

Here once more we have a great simplicity as 
the result of our final analysis. We followed 
physical matter back until in its inceptions it had 
become so nearly a pure force that we could hardly 
define it in terms of matter at all. In the same 
fashion life stripped itself of its gay and lively 
attributes to emerge in a universal simplicity that 
must animate all things or they could not exist at 
all. Now consciousness also we find to be a 
requisite ingredient. A thing that should not 
respond in any manner to any law—were such a 
thing conceivable—would be indeed a “dead” 
thing, a thing without consciousness. Such is 
impossible. 


CREDO 61 


Vill 


It might be as well to digress at this point for a 
moment’s glance at our own position in relation to 
all this. So tremendously complicated an ar- 
rangement of matter are we, as compared with the 
rest of the creation we know; so tremendously 
alive; so tremendously conscious, that we are 
inclined, unless we watch out, to overestimate our- 
selves, and to consider ourselves as about the most 
important criteria to which all other things must 
be referred. Unless we are exclusively occu- 
pied with a worm’s eye view of ourselves, that is, 
as far as we are concerned, a correct enough atti- 
tude; up to a certain point and as a working hy- 
pothesis. 

But certainly as far as physical matter is con- 
cerned, and probably—by analogy—as far as life 
and consciousness go, we occupy as yet a rather 
low point. Down the scale through the element, 
the molecule, the atom, the electron; through man, 
beast, bird, plant, protozoa, and the geological 
constituents; through all the grades of conscious- 
ness from a Newton to the dull slow stirrings of 
mechanical reaction, is a long long road; but we 


62 CREDO 


can see all the distance, retrace practically all the 
steps. Casting outward, however, we see only the 
beginning, and a small beginning at that. Ata 
certain point the mind begins to lose the value of 
its figures; yet the figures lead unwaveringly on. 

Our insignificance in the physical universe we 
have begun to realize. The facts can be piled up 
until they cease to register. For instance, if we 
will use our imagination to reduce the magnitude 
of the earth to that of a pinhead',—we remaining 
the same size as now—then the sun becomes the 
size of an orange and is thirty feet away, and 
Neptune on the outskirts of our solar system resem- 
bles a pea and is a thousand feet distant. Remem- 
ber that man inhabits the pinhead. ‘That is for 
our solar system alone. But our solar system is 
not alone: it has neighbours. ‘The nearest of these 
is the star Alpha Centauri. It would be, in the 
shrunk universe we have imagined, roughly thir- 
teen million feet from the orange that represented 
the sun! And that is our very next neighbour. 
When we begin to measure farther we have to 


1QOr, what is the same thing, increasing our own size propor- 
tionally. 


CREDO 63 


abandon our tidy little standards and adopt new 
ones. Light, we know, travels at the terrific rate 
of 186,000 miles a second. In calculating dis- 
tances between stars astronomers adopt this as a 
unit. It is now estimated that there are something 
near fifty billion of stars in our universe, and that 
light—travelling at 186,000 miles a second—would 
take about fifty thousand years to traverse it from 
end to end! Furthermore it is now practically 
certain that there are other universes beside our 
own, some of them visible as nebule. ‘There 
would seem to be plenty of room! 

From such considerations it becomes at once 
very evident that, in spite of the enormous discrep- 
ancy in the scale between ourselves and the micro- 
SCOpic, We occupy a pretty low position in the 
whole scheme of space. In order to bring atoms 
and electrons into a size that can be handled we 
need only to reduce our own size ten billion times." 
Then the atoms would seem to us about three feet 
in diameter and the electrons about the size of a 
pinpoint. Of course a ten-billionth reduction 
somewhat staggers the imagination; but is nothing 


1Leaving, of course, the rest of the physical universe as it is. 


64. CREDO 


at all as compared to fifty thousand years of steady 
travelling at the rate of nearly sixty-seven million 
miles an hour! 

These figures and pictures are not introduced to 
dazzle or confuse. ‘They are intended merely to 
show that as far as the material is concerned we 
are by no means the last word in possibility, nor 
in probability. Just at the moment we happen to 
bear a relation of about fourteen millions of steps 
to the diameter of the thing we live on. A shift 
in that proportion—up or down; or a shift of that 
proportion to some other thing to live on, and we 
would possess an entire new relationship and 
perspective. ‘There seems not only to be plenty of 
space but plenty of possibilities! 

It is in my opinion not at all improbable that 
the same considerations affect the other two mem- 
bers of what appears to be an indissolvable and 
independent trinity. Life and consciousness seem 
to possess at least the potentiality, if not the 
actuality, of similar shifts of scale and relationship. 
We are not aware of higher forms of consciousness 
than our own, as we are aware of the greater 
standards of space than our own, but that is not 
conclusive evidence of their non-existence. Or, 


CREDO 6c 


if they do not yet exist, is our own present self- 
gratulating estate any evidence that consciousness 
is not capable of development infinitely beyond its 
embodiment in ourselves of to-day? 


IX 


That is, however, a matter for more considera- 
tion in its proper place. For the moment it is 
sufficient that we find ourselves in possession of a 
completed circle. Any material substance must 
possess life: segregate life must possess the power 
of reaction to outside stimulus; as consciousness 
reduces itself finally to awareness-response, all life 
must have consciousness. All things in time and 
space—within, it must be remembered, the widest 
limit markers we have set to our understanding— 
must be material, must be alive, must be conscious. 

That is as far out and out—and in and in—as our 
vision and knowledge can take us. But does not 
this convergence justify us in extending our straight 
lines to acommon meeting point? We have found 
all matter to be finally one thing. We have 
determined life to be primordially one thing. We 
have reasoned that consciousness, however widely 
it seems to vary in degree, must ultimately define 


66 CREDO 


itself as one thing. Within our time and space 
limit markers we have found matter, however 
tenuous; life, however sluggish; consciousness, 
however simple, to be omnipresent. Does not 
this more than suggest that they themselves are 
ultimately, although in some manner outside our 
markers, also one thing? that life, consciousness, 
matter are manifestations of a single quality? 

How this can be we are not capable of under- 
standing, any more than we are capable of under- 
standing how there can be no end to space or time. 
But we are capable of taking the abstract con- 
ception asa working hypothesis and examining 
how the accepted facts of life fit with it or are 
explained by it. 


CHAP TERSLV 


IFE, consciousness, and matter we should 
find then to be in essence expressible one 
in terms of the other. This proves to be 

the case. Matter, when we speak of it in its 
electronic aspects, is defined as a balance and 
interplay of vital forces. It is defined by some 
philosophers as a state of consciousness. It may 
be measured and weighed and evaluated, of course, 
strictly according to its own attributes. Similarly 
life has been philosophically stated in terms of 
pure consciousness; and mechanistic science has 
never given over the attempt to reduce it to a 
purely material concept. ‘The same can be said of 
consciousness. All these points of view are true, 
but only partially so. The mistake is in too great 
a rigidity; in an insistence that because one can 
define the other in its own terms, therefore the 


other cannot exist. Instead of seeing the under- 
67 


68 CREDO 


lying unity, the specialist is convinced that all but 
his specialty is phantasmagoric. 

This is interesting; but it is after all not of 
the least importance. The specialist must wear 
blinders in order to travel his straight road. 
What is important is this: that not only may life, 
consciousness and matter be defined in terms of one 
another, but they manifest themselves in one 
another. 

This is worth pausing over, for it is a fun- 
damental. Though a basic unity les outside the 
limit markers of our complete understanding— 
and as we have seen in the last chapter there is 
an almost overwhelming probability of such a 
unity—within our three-dimensioned space and 
our three-dimensioned time we have to deal with 
a trinity... At the point of their completest 


1] have been asked why an underlying unity is necessary or de- 
sirable, why a nature may not be conceived as flatly and finally dual 
or triune, why it is necessary to suppose final intelligence. The 
answer is purely logical. We must postulate an inunderstandable 
infinity, for the simple reason adduced that, like the child looking at 
the sky, we can conceiye of no end to space—or time. But if 
there is infinity, then it must include everything that is. Otherwise it 
would not be infinity. It would be all things and all space except the 
thing it did not include, which would be outside of it, on the other 
side of the wall. Therefore, since there is such a thing as intelli- 


CREDO 69 


simplicity they almost merge; but at the moment 
with which we wish to deal with them they are 
clearly enough defined. We cannot remain for- 
ever at fundamental simplicities—not if we are 
to formulate a satisfactory daily companion of 
belief. The members of this trinity, to repeat, are 
constantly manifesting themselves in one another. 
Life clothes itself in matter to form the varied 
physical world: consciousness seems to order and 
make intelligent and understandable both the 
processes and forms of life; matter reaches the 
potentialities of its substance through the life and 
consciousness which it embodies. ‘They interact 
mutually. 

But for the purposes of our examination we may 
reduce this trinity to a duality. In the math- 
ematics of the universe threes and twos seem to be 
especially favoured. The two members of the 
duality appear to correspond to the great com- 
plementary opposition that obtains all through 
nature—male and female, positive and negative, 
the plus and minus of chemistry, active and 
Be matter, and life, and consciousness, the finite must be pos- 


tulated as intelligent, etc. These things are in last analysis its 


attributes. 


70 CREDO 


passive. We have substance, which embodies, on 
the one side; and life and consciousness, which 
manifest themselves, on the other. Substance 
furnishes the material; consciousness and life the 
intention or idea and the vital force of achieve- 
ment. 


iI 


This is a logical enough supposition, and will be 
and has been accepted by a great many people 
without the necessity of further argument and 
demonstration. However, it will be more sat- 
isfactory to inquire whether we have any actual 
knowledge to sustain the view. Let us concentrate 
for the purpose of discussion on one phase of this 
mutual interaction. 

A tree is a material thing, composed of cells of 
different kinds and in certain arrangements. 
These cells, in turn, are made up of molecules and 
atoms of various elements, which of course are 
merely arrangements of electrons. Why do these 
things, at this place, arrange themselves in the 
form of a tree; while identically the same sort of 
things arrange themselves over there in the form 
of a butterfly? 


CREDO 71 


That would seem to be a simple enough question. 
It has been variously answered ; but in analysis the 
answers prove merely to push the question farther 
back. “Action of natural law,” says one. What 
then causes one kind of law to act here to produce 
the tree and another kind to act there to produce the 
butterfly? “That is a result of evolution,” is 
the answer; and for years we are lost in the delight- 
ful by-paths of evolutionary process, from which 
we emerge at last with a fairly clear conception of 
growth, to be sure, but with no adequate explana- 
tion. We prove that evolution is a fact. The 
spontaneous appearance of forms superior to 
the originals seems logically to be a scientific and 
philosophical impossibility. Yet we have proved 
mutations, abrupt transformism, certain aspects 
of the acquisition of instincts. Especially muta- 
tion—or the abrupt appearance of new clearly 
differentiated forms of life." The slow experi- 
ments and careful reasoning of years has led us to 
the point where we can clearly see that while 


1The subject is too long for detailed discussion. It is now of 
historical value only, as the conclusions are about out of the con- 
troversial stage. Le Dantec, De Vries, Blaringham, Cope, Geley may 


be consulted in any good library. 


72 CREDO 


evolution itself is fundamental, many of the proc- 
esses of evolution are as yet obscure. Nature 
herself, in insect transformation, presents to us an 
amazing example. -In its life history the very 
butterfly of which we are speaking upsets the old 
classical theories of an unbroken material progres- 
sion through environmental influences solely; and 
forces us to introduce some new and vital factor 
of growth. 


Ill 


So significant is this signpost set by Nature to 
guide us, that it will be worth while to consider it 
in detail. 

We have long been accustomed to trace what 
seemed to the scientists of another generation the 
course of evolution through a supposedly un- 
broken series of development. It was presumed 
that one form must necessarily evolve from the 
next one lower. When gaps occurred in the even 
gradations and mergings, it was assumed that the 
forms representing them had been destroyed so 
completely as to leave no trace. They were 


Df ; 


“missing links,” whose remains might one day be 


discovered. Moreover, the mergings were held to 


CREDO 73 


be gradual, and the modifications solely due to the 
influence of such things as environment and the 
struggle for existence. On the basis of this sup- 
position scientific thought tried to explain evolu- 
tion on the single basis of matter, and to de- 
fine the individual thing as a mere cellular com- 
plex. | 

But proved mutations, both in fossil forms and 
in species now living, threw this entire conception 
into confusion. New species sometimes appear 
abruptly, without transitional forms.’ Natural 
selection, the struggle for existence, and the other 
classical factors are strongly contributing, but they 
are not first causes. Even the idea that new forms 
take shape as the direct result of environment is 
open to grave doubt, though the new form is 
indubitably expressly fitted to the environment. 
It begins to seem that the new form is not moulded 
by the environment as a sculptor models a plastic 
figure. Rather it is first foreshadowed, then con- 
structed by something within, which sees a need 
and answers it. 

A moment’s thought, even without reference to 





1The evening primrose among plants, and the fruit fly among 


animals are present day examples of mutation. 


74 CREDO 


the accumulation of scientific evidence, will show 
the reasonableness of this view. The classic idea 
had it that improvement, appearing by chance, so 
to speak, in an individual gave him an advantage 
over other individuals which enabled him to 
survive where others perished. ‘The transmission 
by heredity of the improvement established the 
modification and eventually led to an ascending 
evolution of species. That is the simplest state- 
ment of the pure Darwinian idea of the method 
of evolution. 

The modifying reasoning can be stated as 
simply, though it, too, has a library of proof and 
discussion back of it. Geley puts it into a short 
paragraph. 

“Tn order that any given modification occurring 
in the characteristics of a species or of an individ- 
ual, should give to that species or to that individual 
an appreciable advantage in the struggle for life, 
it is evident that this modification must be suff- 
ciently marked to be utilizable.” 

But a new organ or a new faculty is never so. 
It is adumbrated in embryo, and develops only 
very slowly. Conceivably the development of 
wings gave the flying reptile an advantage over his 


CREDO 75 


pedestrian cousin—after he got them so he could 
fly with them. Embryonic wings appearing by 
hazard could give him no such advantage. The 
possessor would stand no more chance of surviving, 
and passing on his fortuitous acquisition, than any 
of his fellows. | 

So evident did this become that naturalists soon 
modified their ideas to include what might be 
called, not natural, but organic selection. This 
hypothesis laid the stress on pressure of environ- 
ment. It is not chance that produces the mod- 
ification, but necessity. The development of new 
organs or characteristics comes from their repeated 
use, and their atrophy from neglect. ‘These ad- 
aptations are at first very slight, but are emphasized 
by use until they result in major transformations. 
This is the simplest possible statement of the 
Lamarckian theory, and is still held by many who 
seek to reduce their science to the terms of one 
substance. 

At first glance it seems to be a more intellectually 
satisfying doctrine. It explains much that pure 
Darwinism fails to meet. But it too falls short of 
accounting for mutation, and for such phenomena 
as the transition from a water life to a land life, or 


76 CREDO 


of a land life to an air life. That these transitions 
are due to the pressure of some sort of necessity 
there can be no doubt—whether the necessity was 
physical, as of overcrowding or deadly pursuit, or 
some urge of development. But the idea that they 
are due to adaptation is untenable. 

‘The ancestral species, adapted to very special 
surroundings, had no need to change them, and 
had they felt the need, would have been unable to 
meet it. How could the reptilian ancestor of the 
bird adapt itself to surroundings which were not 
its own and could only become its own after it had 
passed from the reptilian to the bird form? ... 
There is no connection between the biology of the 
larva, which represents, to some degree at any rate, 
the primitive state of the ancestral insect, and the 
biology of the perfect insect form. One cannot 
even conceive by what mysterious series of adapta- 
tions, an insect, accustomed to life underground or 
in water, could succeed in gradually creating for 
itself wings for an aerial life, closed to it and 
doubtless unknown. 

“When, further, one considers that this myste- 
rious series of adaptations would have to take 
place, not once, by a kind of ‘natural miracle,’ but 


CREDO ah 


as many times as there are genera of insects,—”’ 
then the case becomes hopeless. 

“Adaptations,” concludes Geley, ‘appear as a 
consequence, sometimes as a determining factor, 
but never as a sufficient and essential cause.” ! 

In other words, according to this concept, evolu- 
tion has come about not so much by the action of 
environment as in conformity to it. The devel- 
oping organism in some mysterious fashion feels 
its need in correspondence, and at once begins to 
take steps toward meeting that need. The mod- 
ification is sometimes long foreshadowed, 1s long 
in preparation, remains long in unusable form, 
long has itself no influence on the organism’s 
chances of survival or predominance over its 
fellows. Development ts by the idea from within, 


IV 


This hypothesis receives enormous strength 
when one considers embryonic development and 
histolysis. 

The progress of the embryo, as is well known, 
more or less completely sums up the physiological 


1See also Arthur Thomson for an admirable discussion of the 
difference between a modification and a mutation—Outline of Science. 


78 CREDO 


history of the organism. ‘The baby passes rapidly 
from the simple cell through all intermediate 
stages to the human. At one period he has the 
gill clefts of fishes, at another he resembles the 
embryo turtle in the structure of his heart, his first 
trace of a backbone is the notochord of the lam- 
prey,andsoon. Any organism assumes successive 
forms, quite different one from the other, before 
reaching its final stage. ‘The tadpole has all the 
characteristics of organs and method of a fish. 
Suddenly, without any change in surroundings or 
life, it develops legs, lungs, and a three chambered 
heart, and becomes a frog. It is impossible to 
ascribe these changes to a change in chemical 
equilibrium, as mechanistic science would have 
it, without the aid of the directing idea. Concede, 
for the purposes of argument only, that this might 
have been the case in the countless years of the 
development of the species, that slowly there did 
take place, in response to environment, chemical 
changes that modified structure. How about the 
individual? What causes in him these chemical 
changes? Not environment, surely; but some 
inner principle inherent in the individual germ 
from which he sprang, some stored and specific 


CREDO 79 


idea compressed into the compass of a single 
plasm. 

But if this is not conclusive, consider the insect. 
Throughout the development of the ordinary em- 
bryo, however rapidly it takes place, we can trace 
a continuity. One form follows another. ‘They 
join hands, so to speak. ‘The elementary expands 
to the simple; the simple to the varied; the varied 
to the complex. Each idea, progressively elab- 
orate, builds itself in the progressively elaborate 
material prepared for it. In the insect, however, 
we find a definite break, when the old idea is dis- 
carded, the old substance melted down into primor- 
dial substance, and a new idea manifested in the 
raw material. 

This takes place in the chrysalis. We are all 
familiar with the externals of the operation. ‘The 
caterpiilar, after leading a pedestrian and assim- 
ilative life, constructs himself an impervious shell; 
after a period he comes forth as a butterfly. It 
remained for Weissman to point our way to find- 
ing out what happened inside that chrysalis. ‘The 
body of the insect is dematerialized, melted down. 
It is completely disintegrated, liquefied. It be- 
comes a single substance from which specific dis- 


So CREDO 


tinctions and organs presently disappear. From 
that raw material a new kind of creature is formed. 
It feeds differently, it leads a different life, it has 
different organs and functions. ‘This new crea- 
ture’s new organs are not extensions of or modifica- 
tions of the organs and functions of the old 
creature. They seem in no way to have any 
affiliation with the destroyed organs. ‘They are 
different. 

Of course this is no more remarkable than that 
the individual human cell should possess, packed 
away in its tiny compass, all the potentialities of 
the varied and complicated organs and functions 
of the adult body. But it is more direct and strik- 
ing. Here we have before our eyes a complete 
organization dissolved back to its original plastic 
material, and in that material a new idea of the 
creature manifested. It is, as we have said, almost 
as though this example, at once so unique and so 
arresting, had been placed as a guide post to our 
thought. 


Vv 


The invariable presence of the Idea, or Inten- 
tion, or whatever we please to call it—the condi- 


CREDO 81 


tioning central dynamism that expresses itself in 
the material—becomes also evident in other 
departments besides the zodlogical, once the prin- 
ciple is grasped. It is only recently that chemistry 
has realized that there is an unexplained force or 
power involved in its own reactions. ‘Two parts 
of hydrogen do not combine with one part of 
oxygen without the demonstration—and hence the 
presence of a third thing, an unknown X. This 
X may as easily be defined in terms of the intention 
as of force. 

Consider a man in the process of doing any 
' piece of work. He utilizes energy. Not one in- 
finitesimal fraction of an ounce of it did he pro- 
duce. It has been there all the time. But he seg- 3 
regates it, and he directs it into channels. From 
the reservoir he dips some up in his own cup 
and by use makes it his own. He intentions it. 
And when he so intentions it, he does not make 
any more nor any less: he merely changes the 
adjustment. And until he intentions it, it is 
merely existent. We can thus, in the case of the 
human being, see very clearly that a thing is 
created, in the sense of being embodied or mani- 
fested, solely by the idea or intention put into it. 


82 CREDO 


We have also seen, though perhaps more dimly, 
that in the department of zodlogy the raw material 
—as in the chrysalis—takes its shape in conformity 
to an idea of the thing, or an intention. 

Nor does this reasoning fail in the lower organi- 
zations. It too simplifies, just as we found life 
and consciousness to simplify; but in essence it 
remains the same. 

Salt is composed of chlorine and sodium. Now 
the mere presence of quantities of chlorine and 
quantities of sodium does not mean that all will 
combine to produce salt. Only an exact propor- 
tion will do so. When we understand what they 
are, we can produce them, and make a definite 
quantity of salt; and we can make it because we 
intend to make it. And when all is said and done 
the formula for salt is not merely sodium Plus 
chlorine equals salt. It is sodium, plus chlorine, 
plus the thing that happens when they get to- 
gether, equals salt. 

Now it cannot conceivably matter one bit 
whether the combination is effected deliberately 
by man or “in the course of nature.” ‘The process 
is the same and the formula is the same. The 
chemist apprehends and deliberately uses the idea 


CREDO 8 


of salt; but the idea is there. He doesn’t change 
it nor add to it. He merely makes it personal 
by intending it. He cannot produce his result 
without the idea. Furthermore, he did not orig- 
inate the idea. If he had never discovered how 
to make salt, salt nevertheless would have been 
in existence. Here again we cannot avoid recog- 
nizing the presence, as an ingredient, of intelli- 
gence. The making of things is intelligent. 
There are definite ideas, which are embodied. It 
is useless to look at it from another angle and to 
attempt to ascribe it all to the “workings of natural 
law,” and to rest on that statement. The natural 
law is intelligent. We find it so, and in complete 
reliance on that fact we utilize it. If it were not 
intelligent our own intelligence could not so uti- 
lize it. Turn and twist it as we will, the Idea 
is there, embodying itself in the fashion that ex- 
presses it best. 


VI 


Nor does it matter from which aspect we view 
it. We have still our trinity of attributes of the 
underlying unity expressing itself interchangeably. 
Substance, the material of embodiment; life, the 


84 CREDO 


force or dynamism; consciousness, the guardian of 
the idea. In this mutual interaction they assist 
each other upward in the spiral of evolution. 
Through successive: utilizations by life and con- 
sciousness substance becomes increasingly complex 
in structure, increasingly responsive, varied and 
plastic and therefore increasingly capable of 
representing. Through successive embodiments 
in substance life emerges from the dull torpidity 
that binds it in the iron to the vibrant flashing 
animation of its highest present development. 
By means of successive demonstrations in sub- 
stance and experiments in life, consciousness ex- 
tends and elaborates and perfects its ideas. 


CHAPTER V 


N the last chapter we have instanced certain 
phenomena which are, each in its way, 
examples of mutual interaction between con- 

sciousness, life, and substance, which seem at once 
equal and universal. We have seen from them, 
and from the inexorable logic behind them, that 
any manifestation whatever is both preceded by 
and governed by the :dea of that manifestation. 
And since consciousness in its finite aspect as one 
of a trinity is the guardian of the Idea, it is the 
governing factor in that trinity. Furthermore, 
we have seen that in essence consciousness is a 
single sort of thing; life is a single sort of thing; 
also substance. ‘This is so in spite of the immense 
variety of manifestations of each. 

Since consciousness is the governing factor, 
manifesting its idea in substance, by means of the 


force of life, it is evident that our chief concern, 
85 


86 CREDO 


when it comes to a question of orienting ourselves, 
must be with consciousness, rather than with sub- 
stance. Life we ally with consciousness. We 
must examine the cosmos and our place in it from 
that angle. 

That attitude, then, to repeat, shows us con- 
sciousness manifesting itself in substance by means 
of life. Life exhibits many and varied forms; 
and these forms are fashioned each according to 
its own idea or plan. It does not require a very 
great stretching of the spirit or extension of vision 
to see this, at least as a picture. Especially this 
fact is borne home to one who contemplates the 
springtime. The green living things, the trees 
and bushes and grasses and bright flowers; the 
birds, the little animals, the myriad insects; all 
seem to be in essential, not differing and distinct 
phenomena, but an upsurgence of a single vitality 
seeking outlet. It is as though a fountain of in- 
exhaustible energy were throwing upward a cease- 
less spray of living things. Were we able by 
some juggling of our time ratios apparently to 
speed up the earth rotation as related to ourselves, 
so that the seasons would pass before us as minutes 
and seconds instead of years, this rhythmic surge 


CREDO 87 


of life would become more vividly apparent. 
The lift and fall of individual existences would be 
like drops in the fountain’s jet. Nothing seems to 
us more peacefully satisfying in its dignity of per- 
manence than a forest of great trees, yet it is con- 
ceivable that under a changed time ratio to the 
beholder it would appear to spring from the soil 
into the rounded soft mobility and to sink back into 
the soil again as briefly and as gracefully as rises 
and falls a wave on the sea. 

This is all very well as a generality. The pic- 
ture is an inspiring one. But it satisfies only as 
long as we stand apart watching our hypothet- 
ically speeded-up world. When we reénter our 
own time ratio we are struck not only by the abun- 
dance of life’s overflow, but by its amazing variety 
of forms. A single cubic foot of the earth’s sur- 
face will reveal to the microscope a staggeringly 
numerous population going about its lawful 
occasions. Any flower garden of a warm and 
sunny afternoon will display apparently enough 
of a variety of life forms to answer any conceivable 
needs of correspondence to environment; and yet 
outside the plot are more and more and yet more. 
The trees of the forest stand thick and dense, and 


88 CREDO 


clothe well the hills. The pines live on the rocky 
highlands or in the sandy soil, and the broad-leaved 
trees on the rounded hills or in the fertile valley. 
But they are not merely pines and broadleaves. 
There are white pines, and sugar pines, and yellow 
pines, and Norway pines, and the various firs, and 
the hemlocks and larches and dozens more. And 
there is birch and elm, maple and hickory and 
beech and cottonwood and a host of species beside. 
How does it happen that life manifests itself so 
variously, that consciousness has so many ideas? 
Why in the universal substance, animated by the 
universal life, does consciousness embody here the 
idea of a dog, there of a tree, yonder of a human 
being? 


II 


To make even a beginning of understanding we 
must recognize that consciousness itself must, at 
this present moment in which we live, be differen- 
tiated into many qualities. There is a certain type 
or kind or quality of consciousness possessed by a 
dog, and another type or kind or quality of con- 
sciousness possessed by a man. They differ one 
from the other. There is still another type or 


CREDO 89 


kind or quality of consciousness possessed by a 
tree; and that, of course, differs from the other 
two. We might say of consciousness in general 
that sometimes it has a dog-ness, sometimes a tree- 
ness, sometimes a human-ness. In other words, 
though consciousness is in essence a single sort of 
thing, it possesses, or has developed, different 
qualities. 

It is the manifesting in life and substance of 
these differing qualities of consciousness that 
makes the variety that has so amazed us. 

There is nothing new or startling in this prop- 
osition. We have seen in the previous chapter 
the same truth expressed from a physiological 
point of view when we considered the transfor- 
mations that take place in the embryo and in the 
chrysalis. ‘The complete idea of the adult organ- 
ism has at first been compressed into a single germ 
cell, in the one case; and in the liquefied raw 
material of a disintegrated old form in the other. 
The idea in both cases was the idea of that par- 
ticular quality of consciousness. The baby-ness 
was inherent in the germ cell: the butterfly-ness in 
the chrysalis. In other words, the differing 
quality of consciousness in each case made the 


90 CREDO 


difference in the form of life. It is that which 
makes it a bit of separateness from all other con- 
sciousness; which makes it aware; which makes it 
what it is; which picks it forth from the inunder- 
standable cosmic consciousness. It is this, rather 
than a literal Platonic “prototype,” which de- 
termines species and kinds. 

Nevertheless we must beware of conceiving of 
these qualities apart from the consciousness of 
which they are phases or attributes. 


{il 


Let us concentrate, now, for the purpose of 
discussion, on a single quality of consciousness. 
We will take, for convenience, the tree quality, 
which we have called tree-ness. That tree-ness 
tends to express or embody itself in substance; or 
it tends to make individual the life force in sub- 
stance—whichever you will. The result is 
finaliy a tree, as we know it. That tree is an 
organism of well known form. ‘The form is de- 
termined by the environment. It takes shape on 
a globe with certain physical characteristics of 
size, soil, atmosphere, moisture and heat. Its own 
size, its organs, its functioning, its shape and 


CREDO gI 


appearance are all conditioned by these facts. In 
other words, in the environment we know, Tree- 
ness manifests itself as a thing not over three or 
four hundred feet tall nor over thirty feet thick, 
with woody fibre for stability and the necessary 
circulation of its sap; in branching form for the 
accommodation of its foliation; in the foliation for 
those functions of breathing and absorption which 
life in an atmosphere of hydrogen and oxygen 
makes necessary; and so on. The result of these, 
and other, correspondences, as a whole, is the tree 
as we see it. 

But now conceive in imagination the quality 
of tree-ness manifesting itself in matter wherein 
relationships differ widely from those found on 
our earth. [ think it a not unfair assumption 
that the quality of consciousness * which we have 
called “‘tree-ness,”—or indeed any other quality of 
consciousness—may quite well exist elsewhere in 
the finite cosmos than on our somewhat insignifi- 
cant earth. Indeed, philosophically, one can go 
farther and predicate that in infinite consciousness 
all qualities of consciousness must exist every- 
where. That for the moment does not concern us. 


1 Or the Idea of the tree. 


92 CREDO 


What we are interested in is the thought that the 
tree quality almost certainly must manifest itself 
elsewhere than on our earth; and that it must al- 
most certainly embody itself in matter whose 
physical relationships are different from our own. 
The atmosphere may be lighter or heavier or may 
lack entirely; the density of matter may be quite 
different; the temperatures may be far above or 
far below what we know. In short there may be a 
set of conditions so widely at variance with our 
own that no life as we know it could possibly 
sustain itself. On this account it has been the 
invariable speculative habit to state baldly and 
categorically that “life is obviously impossible on 
this, that, or the other planet or star or satellite 
because conditions there found are incapable of 
sustaining life.” * 

This is, in my opinion, an obvious non-sequitur. 
Life in the forms we know may be obviously 1m- 
possible. An air breathing animal cannot exist 
without air. But this by no means makes impos- 
sible the presence not only of life, but of the same 





1Dr, Levi Noble in his studies of volcanoes found alge living in 
a temperature of 200° F. The adaptation had taken place, although 
this degree of heat had been supposed to be fatal to all life. 


CREDO 93 


qualities of consciousness with which we are 
familiar. ‘They would, through the necessity of 
physical maintenance, embody themselves in to- 
tally different forms with totally different func- 
tions, but they would express nevertheless the 
same qualities of consciousness, the same ideas. 
Tree-ness might manifest itself in the material 
environment of some distant solar system—that 
of Canopus for instance,—where the predominat- 
ing elements of matter are not only new and 
strange, but which bear to each other relations 
cast in a novel numerical ratio. Here the tree 
quality would not, in the construction of its func- 
tioning body, deal with hydrogen and oxygen or 
the chemical formule of moisture and air and 
soil, nor with heat as we know it. For these 
familiar correspondences other correspondences 
are substituted. But—and this is important— 
these new correspondences do provide for exactly 
the same satisfactions of the same basic needs. 

I do not know what the basic needs of the tree 
quality of consciousness may be, but let us name 
stability as one of them, and let us assume that a 
rooted stalk of woody fibre is the physical mecha- 
nism by which that need expresses itself. Both 


94 CREDO 


these assumptions are quite gratuitous, and 
adopted merely for the purpose of discussion. It 
is conceivable that in our Canopus solar system 
the attribute of stability will be better expressed 
by an equilibrium’ of gases, and that the other 
attributes of the tree quality—whatever they may 
be, but which in their sum total make up tree-ness 
—can find each its mechanism of expression in 
the same medium. Then, obviously, we would 
have something that to our earth eyes would not 
in the slightest degree resemble a tree. Never- 
theless, considered as a reality,’ and not as an 
appearance, it would be atree. All the attributes 
of tree-ness would be physically expressed. 

Of course I realize the force of the argument 
that possibly the tree quality would find expression 
only in an environment that duplicates or nearly 
duplicates our own, and that therefore the only 
embodiment of tree-ness must be in the form we 
know. That is possible. But it seems to me to 
arrogate to our own especial conditions an im- 
portance which our position in the spatial cosmos 
hardly seems to warrant. That any quality of 





1], e., the expression in some kind of substance of the basic realities 
of certain Ideas, 


CREDO 95 


consciousness, however relatively unimportant, 
should find itself confined to such a pin point in 
the starry heavens borders somewhat on the 
absurd. 

All this is merely a game of “supposing.” ‘The 
decision of the question outlined above is not at 
this time intrinsically important. Its suggestion 
is intended as another stretching exercise; just as 
was the consideration of the size of our known 
universe. ‘There is plenty of room: there is also 
plenty of possibility. 


IV 


In the preceding section we touched lightly 
upon a rather abstruse conception. It is necessary 
now to consider it more clearly before we can go 
on to speculate on our old question of why the tree 
quality manifests at this point in space rather 
than that, or the dog quality in that rather than 
this. 

If we get clearly in mind differing and varied 
qualities of consciousness expressing themselves in 
physical form, we are likely to form a mental 
image of a sort of series of separated reservoirs 
or pools or vague storage bodies of some sort, each 


96 CREDO 


representing one or another quality of conscious- 
ness from which individual manifestations are 
drawn, so to speak. The temptation to visualize 
such a picture is almost irresistible. To avoid it 
we must go back to our first conception of infinite 
unity. In that aspect consciousness must be all 
one. It differentiates into qualities. But that 
differentiation is analogous, must be, to the mani- 
festation of the human mind in anger, love, dis- 
crimination, speculation or the like. The mind 
does not divide itself off into separate compart- 
ments. This is only an analogy, for these aspects 
of the mind are powers and attributes, rather 
than qualities; but the point is well enough illus- 
trated; and that is, that all qualities of conscious- 
ness exist potentially in every speck of conscious- 
ness. 

It is only another way of saying what has many 
times been expressed theoretically by philosophers 
and fancifully by poets. Everything that is is in 
everything that is. The “flower in the crannied 
wall” has bloomed for all the great seers. It is 
again, on the side of consciousness, the truth we 
have examined in the case of physical substance; 


CREDO 97 


when we found that proton and electron are in 
everything that is, and are always the same. 

The conception, as we have said, is a little 
abstruse. If it prove a stumbling block it may 
be set one side. ‘The alternative conception is 
not antagonistic to the main theme. The qualities 
of consciousness—the guardians of the Idea back 
of every created thing—may be looked upon as 
separate reservoirs from which the individual is 
drawn, so to speak. But all analogy in other 
fields inclines me personally to the view that, 
though the qualities of consciousness must be dis- 
tinct, each in itself, a complete whole containing 
all its own elements, those qualities are so inter- 
fused throughout all cosmos that we may literally 
say that each point of space contains in itself 
all the elements of them all. In the all-pervasive 
cosmic consciousness,—which, we must reiterate, is 
akin to the all-pervasive ether of substance, or vi- 
tality of force,—complete tree-ness, complete dog- 
ness, complete human-ness, complete anything- 
ness, up to the point of present development of 
consciousness, exist everywhere in suspension, as it 
were, ready to precipitate when the conditions of 


98 CREDO 


their being are fulfilled. Given the complicated 
conditions favourable to the tree quality of con- 
sciousness, we have the tree. In other words, the 
reason why at any particular point in space we 
have a tree rather than an ant or a starfish or a 
dog or an antelope or a bed of moss is, not that 
the tree quality is stronger at that point, but be- 
cause the conditions for trees are stronger at that 
point. 


V 


That is so simple as to be self-evident. If we 
stop there, we can flatter ourselves that we rest on 
an axiom. But the rest is very brief. As soon as 
we have caught our breath we must get up and go 
on. Why, at that particular point, do one set of 
conditions obtain rather than another? Why at 
point A are the conditions all assembled for the 
production of a tree, and at point B for a sun- 
flower? Is it pure chancep Is it the balanced 
interplay of many forces? If the latter, how does 
that come about? 

If we are content to think we have explained 
things when we name them—as most of us are,— 
we say the conditions are the result of a long 


CREDO 99 


evolution working itself out. We begin with the 
star-dust in the void, and we trace through planet- 
ary evolution the formation and cooling of worlds, 
the carving of continents, the births and deaths of 
millions of entities of rock and mould, the modify- 
ing influences of waters and ices and the upheaval 
of mountains and the fierceness of suns and the 
soothing of the cooling mists and the watering of 
rains. All these mighty influences have worked 
together until at one tiny spot everything is just 
right. Then one seed, out of thousands that have 
fallen on barren soil, germinates because at last 
the conditions are gathered. And we point out 
that these final conditions could be collected only 
because of a myriad of other phenomena, each of 
which required its own conditions which, in turn, 
were dependent on an equally complicated an- 
cestry. The thing worked automatically, like a 
huge and infinitely complex machine. It is, 
again, a “product of natural law.” 

That is a good answer, as far as it goes; and 
serves to define for us our next question. What 
is this law? What is any law? 

The first thing we notice, when we come to 
think the matter over, is that law, too, is a de- 


100 CREDO 


veloping thing. Matter, life and consciousness 
may hold primordially in themselves all the 
possibilities they are slowly bringing out by evo- 
lution; but only as potentialities. They do not 
exist as active and concrete things until they are 
developed. So all law, on its potential side, un- 
doubtedly exists; but it, too, most certainly does 
not become a thing until it acts. It starts from the 
very simple and works out into the complex. In 
essence it is one thing, just as we found all stuff 
is one stuff. Stuff is only our name for an ac- 
tuality: as is law. There is really nothing fixed 
or static about it, except in its inner essence. We 
actually know very little about it, except that our 
observation shows it to be harmonious and self- 
consistent. It appears to be working toward 
something; but we do not know its goal. We 
cannot even understand why there should be a 
goal. We do perceive, somewhat dimly to be 
sure, that in nature it seems to be tending toward 
two things—self-knowledge, and self-control. 
All steps in evolution contribute toward fitting the 
creature better to understand its own functions and 
correspondences to its environment, and by that 
understanding to get on better with its surround- 


CREDO 10! 


ings. We also perceive, when we look somewhat 
deeper, that there appears to be almost a passion 
for organization, and for a unity of direction 
under a diversity of forms. ‘That is about all we 
are now able to know of law in itself. 

But we can look a little deeper into how law 
works. ‘To begin with, no one ever makes a law 
work, in the sense of a direct control. He merely 
assembles in proper juxtaposition and proportion 
the necessary conditions. Note that this is the. 
same prerequisite to the manifestation in specific 
form of any quality of consciousness. Having 
done this much, he cannot prevent the law from 
working. We talk of lighting a fire as though we 
had actually created something out of a void. As 
a matter of fact we pile our wood, we place our 
kindling and our paper, we supply certain chemi- 
cals under motion and abrasion. The law steps 
in. Briefly expressed, we had an idea in our con- 
sciousness and manifested it in substance. There 
is no working of any law unless the conditions 
for that law are arranged. 

How are they arranged? In the case of the 
fire we conceived the idea of the fire, and its 
desirability, and we knew the necessary things to 


102 CREDO 


do, and we did them. Briefly expressed, we felt 
a desire and we used our intelligence. In the case 
of the tree the necessary conditions that permitted 
—or forced—the law of its being to act were 
assembled by a great number of contributing 
causes. ‘The soil was right because the conditions 
for the action of the laws that produce loam and 
humus had been collected and those laws had acted. 
The moisture was right because the conditions for 
the action of the laws that produce rainfall had 
been collected. And so on. ‘The thing has been 
automatic, machine made. In all the complicated 
interplay one set of conditions depends upon and 
is the result of an antecedent set of conditions, 
which in turn have sprung from others. It seems 
in quite different case from our act of deliberate 
intelligence in assembling the fire conditions. 

Is it? We have pushed the question back and 
back, but have we altered either its form or its 
importancer How do all these complicated de- 
pendencies come about? Through the law of 
evolution, the laws of interplay by which forces 
strain and pull and twist against each other, the 
law of increasing complexity, the law of progress 
—call it what you will. But it, in turn, is a 


CREDO 103 


law. It is an embracive law, but it seems to be 
just as definitely a law as that which caused the 
rain to fall on the seed. If it is a law, it—like 
all the other laws—must act because the conditions 
for its acting have been collected. 

So, no matter how far back we go, sooner or 
later we must inevitably come to the same elements 
that laid our fire—desire and intelligence. 

And here, once more, we find ourselves for the 
moment at the limits of our field. We can go 
back only so far without confusion. No matter 
how careful our analysis, we come at last to a 
point where we must stop to ask ourselves the old 
questions: what causes that in turn? why? And 
we find ourselves once more compelled to set work- 
able limits inside the infinity of space and time, 
which we cannot understand. 

From time to time we extend those limits. As 
we require more of space for our astronomical 
balances, more of time for our evolutionary per- 
spectives, we reach out and appropriate what we 
need. But always beyond is the Unknown from 
which deliberately we veil the eyes of our under- 
standing. 

In like manner we reach back and back in 


104 CREDO 


appropriation of what we need in the beginnings 
of life and energy and consciousness. And always 
behind is the ultimate Inunderstandable which we 
cannot touch. We name it Spirit, the Thing 
Beyond, the Ultimate, God. And having planted 
our marker at the utmost point of the usable, we 
turn back to till our chosen field. 


CHAPTER VI 


T is one thing to say that all created things 
are manifestations or embodiments of con- 
sciousness; and quite another to predicate a 

distinct and individual consciousness within that 
quality for each and every one of these separate 
things. Whereabouts does the individual, as a 
separate thing, begine How, theoretically, can 
we conceive of its originating? 

We must here, of course, enter the realms of 
pure speculation, and if we are to speculate with 
any reasonable satisfaction we must have some- 
thing to go by. It is an appropriate time to re- 
peat that this is only an attempt to tell how at 
this time things seem to me, or seem reasonable 
to me. It is not an argument nor an effort at 
proselyting. The thing I would go by here is 
analogy. Analogies, if closely enough drawn, are 


a good basis for speculative hypothesis, for correct 
105 


106 CREDO 


analogy is merely the same law working in two 
different mediums. If it works along certain 
general lines in the one substance, it is only logical 
to suppose that it will work along the same general 
lines in another. 

Let us then drop back in pure theory to the very 
smallest and finest division of things of which we 
are capable, to a hypothetical mathematical point 
differentiated in infinite consciousness. It is like 
going back in substance to our electron, which 
means nothing unless in certain motions and juxta- 
positions. This point in consciousness is not do- 
ing anything, nor is it going anywhere. It just 
1s. Introduced next into this almost total vacuum 
of consciousness the simplest possible intention, or 
idea, or direction. Direction, at this simplest, is 
represented by a line pointing from somewhere to 
somewhere else. That must give us at least two 
points. ‘These might be so close to each other that 
they might seem to be superimposed: nevertheless, 
the moment we have two of them we have direc- 
tion. And in order to get direction—which is the 
simplest idea of which consciousness is capable— 
we must have two points. This process is in al- 
most exact analogy to the like process in the 


CREDO 107 


realm of substance where the simplest first expres- 
sion is that of the single electron in opposition to 
the single proton. 

But direction, or two points however close to- 
gether, cannot be conceived apart from the time, 
however brief, it would take to get from one point 
to the other; nor of the space, however minute, 
between them. In other words, consciousness 
as a single unit—which can be, of course, only the 
infinite consciousness—can have neither time nor 
space nor motion. Only when there is a differ- 
entiation, when there are two points, does the idea 
of time,—and hence space and motion,—come in. 

Our hypothetical little composite unit with only 
two things in it is very simple. Not much can 
be expressed by it in the way of idea or intention. 
Its functions in such expression must necessarily 
be extraordinarily limited. To accomplish any- 
thing further a third unit must be added, and to 
one side. Then we have the idea of the triangle, 
and of energy working not in a single line of 
direction, but of two—straight ahead and to one 
side. Here we enter plane geometry. The pos- 
sibilities are many more than double those of two 
points, but they are still very limited. So let us 


108 CREDO 


add more points of consciousness; thus producing 
not only length and breadth, but thickness, and the 
more complex motion that must result from several 
forces exerting themselves in different directions. 
Sometimes this exertion is with one another, some- 
times against. 

This is mathematics, or mechanics, if one 
pleases; but it is also consciousness. And it is 
the remote inception of what we call intelligence, 
in that when reduced to its beginnings,—as we 
reduce substance to its electronic beginnings,— 
intelligence is just the complicated interplay of 
these specks of consciousness. It does not possess 
many of the attributes as yet; it is merely the 
beginning. For example, it has not become mem- 
ory; but it is the sort of activity that makes the 
sort of records of which memory is born. 


II 


We cannot see far enough back to determine 
even approximately when these little combinations 
of consciousness, expressing the simplest sort of 
idea or direction or intention, become the individ- 
ual,—where, as one might say, Me-ness begins. 
It must be very far down indeed. Perhaps it is 


CREDO 109 


even at that first differentiation of all when the 
original two got direction in space and time. 
After all, sensation is merely comparison between 
one, however simple and small, and another. 
These little specks might each have grasped the 
fact of its Me-ness out of recognizing—through 
the mere fact of its reaction of force and motion— 
that there was another beside itself. 

But this we can predicate confidently enough; 
that every speck added to a group introduces not 
only a new force into the combination, but also 
changes the interplay of the old ones. It does 
not matter how relatively small the newcomer is 
as compared to the mass it jorns, it has its influence 
on making a new thing of it. This is as near a 
universal law as we can imagine. It obtains 
everywhere, both in small and in large. It is the 
fundamental of change and of progress. We can 
see it in gross by adding a spoonful of alcohol to 
a two hundred pound man: in small by introduc- 
ing a single electron to an atom and changing gold 
into quicksilver. The interplay and _ interde- 
pendence of all forces in the universe are amazing. 

Though we cannot, as we have said, see far 
enough to guess at the exact origin of the in- 


I1O CREDO 


dividual, we can at least make for ourselves a 
definition by which each may for himself decide 
the question. At some point, very far down in 
the scale, created things ceased being merely rep- 
resentatives or embodiments of the quality of con- 
sciousness which guarded their ideas, and became 
real entities. Atsome point self-ness began. The 
moment might be defined as that in which a thing 
begins to recognize itself as Me and not some- 
body or something else, and to fight with what 
facilities and weapons it may possess to remain 
Me. The microscopical amceba, from this point 
of view, is a Me; and he looks upon everything 
about him with reference to his Me. He notes 
whether it is hot or cold—according to him; wet 
or dry; and he tries to conduct himself with refer- 
ence to those facts in the way best to conserve his 
Me-ness. As soon as he gets that far along he 
has his job. 

And that job is in essentials no different from 
your job and my job. It is simply to practise, 
with all the equipment he possesses, in being Me. 
What more have we to dor We are all learning 
to steer by our own compass: to be completely Me. 


CHAPTER VII 


4HE establishment of the -separate in- 
dividual in consciousness does not by 





i any means,presuppose the enduring in- 
dividual. We are hardly prepared to claim im- 
mortality * for every bee or ant or flower, for every 
frog or fish or amceba or rotifer that is born in its 
multiple-billions every day in the year. The 
idea is logical enough; and if we were put to it 
off-hand we could not define why one created 
thing should have a soul and another not. But 
the extreme and evergrowing multiplicity of in- 
dividual entities does not fall within acceptable 
reason. As we go up in evolution numbers di- 
minish. However convinced we may be as to hu- 


1 We must for the purpose of discussion, and to avoid confusion, 
define immortality only as an individual continuance in the finite. 
The word “eternal” is at present as inunderstandable as infinite 
space. As to why we are justified in believing in survival in any 
case, see Chapter IX. 

It 


114 CREDO 


is true of our own bodily functions. ‘The ear is 
one of the awareness-mechanisms by which we 
realize certain aspects, not-ourselves, represented 
by sound. Some creatures have no perception of 
sound. Others have a very rudimentary ap- 
paratus. We ourselves are able only through slow 
development and education to distinguish between 
noise and music, between rudimentary melody and 
higher harmonies. Thus we become conscious of 
ever finer and finer differences or correspondences 
between the us and the not-us; and we do it by the 
development and refinement and education of our 
awareness-mechanism. 

Considering individual manifestations of con- 
sciousness as, first, expressions of the qualities con- 
sciousness has developed; and, second, awareness- 
mechanisms of consciousness, our difficulties are 
more or less resolved. Consciousness develops 
new qualities which express themselves in new 
forms. The new forms are, so to speak, new or 
more fully refined senses by which consciousness 
becomes self-aware. It is a reciprocating process. 

The function of the ephemeral individual, then, 
is also two-fold, It embodies forth its own qual- 


CREDO 115 


ity of consciousness. Whatever that quality is, 
whatever it comprises, whatever it has developed 
or acquired, whatever wisdom it possesses is the 
creature’s birthright. But also the latter functions 
in its environment; adapts itself; perhaps does 
something on its own account quite original 
with itself; something not inherited. As it is 
itself an awareness-mechanism, consciousness on 
the side of its quality must profit by that achieve- 
ment. Its excursion into originality, its ex- 
perience—successful or unsuccessful—with new 
conditions, become part of the knowledge and 
possession of its quality of consciousness. If 
it has stumbled upon or acquired or devised 
something of real value, it seems quite possible 
that the acquisition might be included in the equip- 
ment of its successors. 

This equipment, which represents self-aware- 
ness on the side of any particular quality of con- 
sciousness, we call instinct. The individual comes 
into existence endowed with a complicated knowl- 
edge of just how to go about things. In some of 
the higher animals such knowledge is assisted by 
teaching of parents and by imitation, but it can be 


116 CREDO 


observed in all its purity in the insect world. In 
his observations on the sand wasp Fabre gives us 
a good example. 

The larva of this insect needs a living but im- 
mobile host in which to develop. ‘To provide such 
a thing the parent must sting its prey just enough 
to paralyse it, but not enough to kill it. If the 
sand wasp possessed no instinct in the matter but 
must act entirely from reason, he would first have 
to go through an extraordinary education. He 
would have to take a course in the anatomy of the 
caterpillar. The caterpillar is sometimes formid- 
ably armed and stronger than its attacker. There 
are only a few nerve centres where a sting brings 
the desired result. After having learned where 
these nerve centres are, and how they can best be 
got at, our student would have to take another 
course in the action of poison. ‘Too big a dose 
will kill: too small a dose will not have the desired 
effect. Furthermore, the different nerve centres 
require differing doses. In one place one stab of 
the sting is right; in another it takes two; in still 
another several more. Nevertheless, the sand 
wasp emerges from its cocoon and goes about its 
highly skilled business unerringly. Its parents 


CREDO 117 


who might have taught it have long been dead: 
its solitary habit precludes its learning so delicate 
a business by repeated example; it has little chance 
for practice, for ordinarily it must succeed at its 
first attempt or be in grave danger. 

This is a simple, though striking, instance. The 
life business of bees is another; the polity of an 
ant colony still another; the reaching of a new- 
born child for its mother’s breast quite as good a 
third. The world is crowded with them. Most 
natural history is observation of the action of this 
type of intelligence. 

Nevertheless, though this endowment of instinct 
comes complete to each creature, the knowledge it 
represents has been slowly acquired and developed. 
It is, we say, innate in that creature; born with it. 
That is true. But it is born with it because its 
quality of consciousness has acquired the wisdom 
as part of itself; and therefore anything that really 
embodies that quality must possess its wisdom. 

Furthermore, this wisdom has been bought as 
any wisdom is bought. No sand wasp, even 
though endowed with full reasoning powers, could 
possibly work out its complicated technique. 
There are too many chances for mistake, and mis- 


118 CREDO 


takes are dangerous. In his first uninformed 
struggle with the caterpillar his random stinging 
would have one chance in a thousand of hitting the 
right spot, and one in many thousands more of 
delivering just the correct amount of poison. But 
if we can conceive of the possibility of correlating 
the experience of a million sand wasps, we might 
be able to get at something through a process of 
elimination. And then try it again with a million 
more. Nature is prodigal of her creatures. 
Why note She is learning. 

This hypothesis, of course, implies that instincts 
are themselves subject to development. For a 
long time the contrary was held to be the case. 
It was acknowledged that the civil administration 
of bee colonies or ant colonies was very perfect, 
but it was assumed that it was fixed and never 
changed. Now later investigation has showed us 
that our conclusions have been drawn too hastily. 
We have observed over too brief a period as com- 
pared to the life history of the race. Insects do 
invent, do adapt, do better their methods when 
confronted with more favorable or radically better 
conditions. Perez, Marchel, and Peckham ? have 





1Works to be found in any good library. 


CREDO 119 


shown this very conclusively in the case of many 
insects, but especially of the bee. ‘That creature, 
whose system of codperative industry and govern- 
ment has long been considered to be a brilliant ex- 
ample of the completely adapted and standard- 
ized, is shown not only to have developed and 
radically improved his methods within our own 
knowledge of his history, but to be capable of the 
most ingenious adaptations or inventions when of- 
fered fresh opportunity. 


CHAPTER VIII 


'E have, as we hinted in the previous 
chapter, no reason in logic so far for 
making any distinction between indi- 
viduals as respects immortality. There seems— 
as far as we have conducted our argument—to be 
no right we can arrogate to ourselves that will 
justify us in drawing a line and claiming that all 
creatures one side the line have souls, and all on 
the other side of the line have not. Nevertheless 
we recoil against carrying the logic out to its 
uttermost. It is more a matter of common-sense 
than of pride of position. I personally would 
have no objection to every ant on the hillside 
possessing an immortal soul, and I should be ready 
to admit the thing as possible; but I shall not be 
inclined to believe it. Common-sense is far from 


being always an infallible guide, but it is a pretty 
120 





CREDO [21 


good indicator to stop, look and listen. What- 
ever it has to say is at least worth examina- 
tion. 

Since we have, up to now, no logical reason to 
deny any individual immortality, provided we 
admit that any individual whatever is immortal; 
but since common-sense interposes a doubt, we 
must examine the whole question to see if there 
is any specific thing, clearly distinguishing, which 
we can ascribe to those creatures we think to be 
immortal, and which we will find to be absent in 
all others. In advance we must anticipate, from 
our studies in other directions, that even if we 
find such an element it will be exceedingly im- 
probable that it will furnish us with a rule by 
which to draw our definite line. In all nature 
we find, not hard and fast divisions, but gradual 
shadings off. We cannot say where the vegetable 
kingdom ends and the animal kingdom begins; 
we cannot say where instinct is replaced or sup- 
plemented by reason; we cannot draw a hard and 
fast line anywhere. But perhaps we can get. a 
basis of definition. 


+See Chapter IX for the reasons why we should predicate contin- 
uity at all. 


122 CREDO 


II 


The two elements that develop and make effect- 
ive consciousness of any sort are experience and 
memory. Experience is the being acted upon by 
things or the attempting of things either success- 
fully or unsuccessfully. But experience is not 
much good unless one remembers it; for only thus 
can one correlate and compare and utilize and 
incorporate into growth. It is also true that for 
continuous consciousness memory is necessary. 
Indeed we may say that consciousness is continu- 
ous only as long as and to the extent that it re- 
members. That it may be intermittent without 
being discontinuous, in the sense we now mean, is 
of course obvious. We do not seem to remember 
anything when we are asleep: but we do carry on 
a continuous consciousness by means of memory. 
This very broad consideration may be said to 
cover the entire question of continuity; whether 
of a brief flash of earth life as exhibited in the 
ephemeride, or in the continuity raised to the nth 
power which we call immortality. 

Here, perhaps, is something to go on. All 
growth comes through experience utilized by 


2 


CREDO 123 


memory. ‘That obtains in the slow and groping 
progress, extended through the thousands of 
years, which led from the ocean’s slime to the first 
amcebe, as well as in the faster evolution of the 
human race from ox cart to aeroplane. The two 
are equally important parts of a reciprocating 
mechanism. In the human being, where we can 
best observe them, they appear to us as almost 
completely exhibited in the individual mechanism 
of each person. 

But when we descend far enough in the scale 
to have reached those creatures whose activities 
seem to be nearly or quite all instinct, we find what 
may be interpreted as a division of labour between 
the creature and the quality of consciousness which 
it embodies. ‘The creature experiences; the qual- 
ity of consciousness remembers. Whatever the 
creature experiences the quality is cognizant of, 
for the simple reason that the creature is—as we 
have seen—the quality’s awareness-mechanism. 
Whatever the quality is cognizant of, is hence- 
forth part of its self-awareness, part of itself. 
And as its creatures are embodiments or manifesta- 
tions of itself, they must subsequently acquire, as 
birthright, whatever the quality has gained. In 


124 CREDO 


its capacity as guardian of the Idea, the quality 
remembers—must remember in the sense that 
memory is a storehouse of utilizable experience. 

We have seen before how the quality remembers. 
It has compressed within the single germ cell all 
the experiences of the human race in its long 
course of evolution, so, that one by one, in orderly 
progression, they are brought forth and passed by 
or utilized. It has even remembered some of the 
mistakes, or near-mistakes or expedients, so that 
we find them completely or partially embodied 
in what we call vestigial remains. It has remem- 
bered faithfully all the chance encounters and 
experiments and failures and rare, occasional, 
blundering successes of the sand wasp, and has 
passed on the results of that memory in the form 
of an exquisitely perfect technique. No individ- 
ual human being has any recollection of those 
experiences; no individual sand wasp. Man does 
not recall even his own brief reptilian phase when 
he possessed a three chambered heart, or his 
equally brief piscatorial phase when he boasted 
gill clefts. The sand wasp has no records of the 
millions of times he essayed and perished. Never- 
theless in the quality of consciousness, of which 


CREDO i 


these two creatures are expressions, all the mem- 
ories of past experience on the part of individuals 
have been retained and are now used. 

Indeed, in the very lowest forms of life it is 
legitimate to doubt whether the individual re- 
members much even of its own experience. We 
do not remember a very large proportion of ours. 
The creature functions. In that functioning it 
experiences things that happen, and acts as an 
awareness-mechanism for the very simple quality 
of consciousness which it expresses. ‘The storage 
of impressions, as one might call it, is in the 
quality, not in the individual. The only reason 
we have for believing that the impressions are 
stored anywhere at all is because the Idea of that 
creature seems to expand and modify in accord- 
ance with the experience of the millions of speci- 
mens of his kind. He proceeds in evolution. 
The later examples of the Idea are an improve- 
ment on the first examples. And the improvement 
is in accordance with the experience of the first ex- 
amples. Those experiences are not taught; they 
are not imitated; they are not embodied in the 
first instance of heredity. The Idea is modi- 
fied. 


126 CREDO 


We are now at last prepared to define instinct. 
It is a sort of racial wisdom, evolved from the 
memory of the experience brought to any quality 
of consciousness by its innumerable creatures. 

Again we can find our perfect example in the 
sand wasp. An individual wasp, or a thousand of 
them, or a million, meet with utter disaster in 
ignorant attempts to fulfil—or better fulfil—the 
requirements of their being. They proceed by 
trial and error—mostly fatal error—in their search 
for a host that shall be both living and immobile. 
At great cost of life they attempt a multitude 
of impossible experiments. Each of these fatal 
accidents is an experience, unavailing to the in- 
dividual that thus perishes, but each adding 
through quality memory to the sum of knowledge 
of what cannot be done. And that knowledge is 
part of the equipment of the wasp quality’s suc- 
ceeding manifestations; so that henceforward 
wasps by instinct do not try that particular thing 
again. Thus by almost infinitesimal steps—and 
through the contribution of innumerable lives— 
the true and only possible method is approached; 
until at last we see in the perfection we have 


CREDO 127 


admired that sure and accurate lethal stab on the 
one possible spot that shall assure the beautiful 
completeness of the wasp’s life cycle. All from 
experience: all from memory. Progress. 


Ill 


That progress is in several directions. It is 
toward the perfection of each quality of conscious- 
ness: it is toward the ever more accurate expression 
in substance of the idea which that quality of con- 
sciousness contains: it is toward the complete 
evocation of all potentialities in that quality of 
consciousness. In other words, consciousness per- 
fects that particular idea; it perfects the embodi- 
ment of the idea; it works out all the possibilities 
of the idea. It does this by experience and mem- 
ory. The individual creatures which embody it 
are its mechanisms of awareness. We might say 
that any quality of consciousness is, in essence, 
striving toward complete self-awareness. It seeks 
to fill out its own level. ‘That is its own especial 
job, the thing that is most important. 

That is why,—at least in the lower and simpler 
and more specialized forms of life,—the species 


128 CREDO 


is so much more important than the specimen. 
That is why nature is so lavish; why she is con- 
tent to spend a million small lives that a single one 
may survive. 

Why not? These lower forms touch individual 
existence as dust motes touch individual existence 
—as far as our attention goes—when they eddy 
in and out of asunray. They flash for a greater 
or lesser period; and are obscured. They have 
gained nothing as motes during their brief life 
of illumination; they have lost nothing as motes 
when they slip out into the shadow. But they 
have added, perhaps, some little bit of beauty in 
the eye of the beholder; and so their very evanes- 
cence has fulfilled a purpose. Ina similar fashion 
the billions of ants and bees and all the buzzing 
and humming and swarming and teeming life that 
crowds everywhere slips into and out of individual 
existence, adding to the memory of their quality 
of consciousness, enlarging their own Intention, 
so to speak, by the tiny bit of experience they gain 
as individuals. And also, in the Pattern, contrib- 
uting to the experience and memory of those things 
and beings with which their little circumscribed 


CREDO 129 


individual lives may bring them in contact. Why 
should not nature be lavish of life? It fulfils. 


IV 


By following this thought just a little farther 
Wwe get a glimpse of one of the processes by which 
evolution may proceed. 

Conceive that some quality of consciousness, 
through its awareness-mechanisms, proceeding on 
through the ages, does develop its potentialities to 
a near-perfection. It is so rich in its store of 
experience and memory and the wisdom appro- 
priate to it that, as to that particular idea, con- 
sciousness is almost completely self-aware. It is 
exuberant with the beauty of its own completeness. 

But this very completeness, like any exuberance, 
is suggestive, so to speak. Dimly, outside its own 
central Idea, other ideas are faintly hinted. Con- 
sciousness seeks another mechanism to embody 
these new ideas, through which to become more 
fully self-aware as to them. Modifications ap- 
pear. Or, when the idea is a fresh one, with 
radical enough departures from what has been, we 
have a brand new species. 


130 CREDO 


Thus another quality of consciousness is born. 
And this quality, like all new things, is at first a 
trifle hazy as to itself and its ideas. It must de- 
velop toward perfection,—again through its mani- 
festations, its awareness-mechanisms. From it, 
likewise, must come those brief flashes into ma- 
terial individuality—each bringing its little gift 
of function fulfilled. It, too, must fill out its 
level to the point of exuberance. And so on up. 
Evolution. 

This conception of the development in evolution 
going on in the qualities of consciousness, the 
moulding dynamism, the thing that is compressed 
in the germ cell that antecedes the human embryo, 
the idea that formed the butterfly out of the lique- 
fied raw material to which the caterpillar was re- 
duced, will,—if accepted,—explain many discrep- 
ancies. We need no longer search for or ascribe 
importance to “missing links.’ We need no 
longer puzzle over mutations. We need no 
longer be surprised at the sudden emergence of 
new faculties or powers; nor need we wonder at 
the spectacle of animated life abruptly leaving the 
sea or taking to the air. The orderly progression 


CREDO 131 


of evolution has gone on, but its sequences must be 
sought in a developing self-awareness of conscious- 
ness. ‘The things we see and study are merely 
such expressions of the Idea as have been necessary 
for the process to go on. 


CEA RTE Rig EX 


EFORE going on we must examine to 
see if we are justified in a belief in con- 
tinuity after death. That belief has 

always been held by the vast majority of mankind. 
It has been questioned at times, it is being ques- 
tioned, but in the long run it has held its own. 
Man expects to survive his bodily decease. Is 
that expectation justified? Is it a deep and true 
instinct born into him from the knowledge and 
wisdom and memory of his human quality? Or 
is it the mere expression of a hope, based on an 
ineradicable egocentricity? 

Many attempts have been made, in many direc- 
tions, to gain some assurance on this important 
point. Though the field of psychic research has 
covered much that has to do with merely an ex- 
tension of man’s own powers, or with an explana- 


tion of the heretofore mysterious; nevertheless its 
132 


CREDO 133 


chief effort has undoubtedly been toward definite 
proof of the survival of personality. Material 
science,—generally with negative results,—has 
devoted much attention to the same thing. Pure 
philosophy has argued in endless volumes. A few 
have thus become convinced that they possess in- 
disputable proof. Nevertheless, in the long run 
and to the majority of people, belief in continuity 
is an article of faith rather than of proof. It is 
accepted on authority, it is accepted on instinct, it 
is a matter of belief held wholeheartedly or hope- 
fully or doubtfully or provisionally or fearfully, 
as the case may be. 

Personally I should be willing to let it rest at 
that. I myself have that deep inner conviction 
of survival beyond this earth life, and J trust that 
conviction. As far as my own attitude toward the 
universe is concerned, and all it implies, I am quite 
ready to proceed on that basis. 

However it does not seem to me necessary to 
proceed on that basis. The biggest things in ex- 
istence we have always to take for a time on faith, 
adopting them in the nature of provisional hy- 
potheses as working premises, accepting the inner 
conviction, as we accept hunger and thirst, as true 


134 CREDO 


guides to our necessities, but this I do firmly be- 
lieve: that nothing finite is ultimately inunder- 
standable. All occult things are capable of 
de-occultization. The whole progress of human 
knowledge is such a process. What the middle 
ages looked upon as miracles, we use as everyday 
commonplaces of applied science. What we to- 
day consider as vague mysteries will undoubtedly 
in their turn, when the time comes, take their 
places in the everyday body of knowledge. In 
the long last, faith is always overtaken by under- 
standing. 


II 


Perhaps in time psychic research will furnish us 
all with the indubitable proof it seeks. I am in- 
clined to think it will. It is a young science. 
In the meantime it seems to me that a very definite 
step may be taken in our intellectual estimate of 
the situation. Let us examine the whole question 
of personal survival beyond death in order to 
determine, if we may, whether any general and 
indubitable principles from our store of knowl- 
edge may not apply. 

The disbeliever in continuity after death,—or 


CREDO 136 


the one who has not in full the inner conviction of 
survival,—considers that the personal conscious- 
ness that now animates him suffers at death an 
extinction, an obliteration, a dissolution similar to 
the dissolution that overtakes the physical body. 
The animating principle passes back into the 
source from which it came; the consciousness 
which has been his rejoins whatever stuff of 
which it is made; the physical body disintegrates 
and becomes again an indistinguishable part of 
the physical substance of which the world is com- 
posed. He cannot, in the light of his own physics, 
predicate a dissolution of these elements into 
nothingness, however. If he is rational in his 
thinking, he must admit the law of the conserva- 
tion of matter and energy. These things may 
change form completely, but they must remain as 
part of the sum total of things. The physical 
constituents of his body, could they be carefully 
segregated and preserved, would weigh the same; 
the force with which he was animated, could it be 
saved and measured, would measure the same. 
Nothing is lost: it is a remergence into that from 
which he was made. He believes that all this 
takes place at the moment of his physical death. 


136 CREDO 


Except as to the single last point we can agree 
with him in general. Continuity as an individual 
separate from all other individuals “forever,” in 
the infinite sense, is as inconceivable as infinity 
itself. Infinity must be a unity. We cannot con- 
ceive of space bounded by a wall; there must be 
something beyond the wall. We cannot conceive 
of space going on forever without a limit. Simi- 
larly we cannot conceive time ever ending;—or 
never ending! We cannot comprehend this; and 
we should not try. But this at least we can ap- 
prehend: that infinity, whether of space or time 
Or consciousness or whatever of reality, must be 
one thing, comprehending in itself all that may 
be. Otherwise it at once ceases to be infinity. 
If there is but one separate thing, and all else, then 
we have the finite. Therefore we cannot avoid 
the thought, no matter how little we may compre- 
hend it, that in the infinite at least there must be 
remergence of all separateness, | must repeat, we 
cannot comprehend this, but we can apprehend it. 

Therefore with the materialist’s conception on 
this score the believer in continuity diverges in 
only one respect. The former would place his 
puint of remergence at the moment of physical dis- 


CREDO 137 


solution. He would say that that point makes 
the merging and coincidence of the individual 
consciousness or life or spirit with the All- 
consciousness, the Infinite, the Absolute. He 
limits his conception of continuity to the thing he 
can at present see. The other, on the contrary, 
continues his individual into a future which the 
physical eye cannot behold. Whether that con- 
tinuance extends but a fleeting moment beyond 
its dissociation with the physical, or out into un- 
guessed wons of time has little to do with the 
matter in essential. For, as we have seen, in the 
strict sense of the term no bit of separateness can 
endure “forever,” in the literal sense, except as by 
successive and expanding growth and inclusion it 
tends in the infinite to become itself the All- 
conscious. 

_ Thus, I think, all must have at least a common 
starting point from which to move forward. 


III 


We can also with all confidence predicate an- 
other apprehension, rather than comprehension, 
of what lies outside our limit markers of time and 
space. We cannot avoid the conception that for 


138 CREDO 


some inscrutable purpose, which we are incom- 
petent to understand, the Infinite has by time and 
space conditioned itself, at least in one phase; and 
that within those conditions it has developed, and 
is continuing to develop, increasing self aware- 
ness through the individual manifestations of an 
ever-growing Idea. Starting, in space and time, 
always with the extremest simplicity, it runs 
through an orderly evolution to great complexity. 
Matter, beginning with proton and electron, grad- 
ually builds up into the (presumably) ninety-two 
elements, which in turn combine in varying pro- 
portions and conditions into a bewildering variety 
of substances. Life proceeds from its first faint 
stirrings of what seems to us one kind of force, 
through a swarm of embodiments, to its multiform 
manifestations as we know it. Consciousness too 
progresses in evolution from the dull mechanical 
reaction to natural law up to the flexible and 
startling embodiment we know in the human being. 
All things we are capable of observing, whether 
by our physical senses or in the inner processes of 
mind and feeling, seem to be subject to this same 
law. Beginning with the simplest conceivable 
elements they proceed by expansion, by develop- 


CREDO 139 


ment and by accretion, to carry out a definite and 
orderly evolution. 

And, furthermore, we perceive that this evolu- 
tion is indeed orderly. There are no shortcuts. 
In the case of those smaller processes which we 
can view as a whole, and as completed, we find 
the return to the starting point with enrich- 
ment of experience, with function fulfilled, is 
always around the arc of acircle. This point has 
been touched on in an earlier chapter. We must 
traverse the whole circumference before we find 
ourselves back again at the original simplicity. 
This again is true in all cosmos, whether we view 
it from the standpoint of matter, of life or of 
consciousness. It obtains in physical nature, it 
obtains in our own psychological experiences, it 
obtains in our laboratory experiments, it obtains 
in the lives of men and the lives of planets. The 
completed circle is more than a symbol; it is a 
universal fact. In the case of any creature, any 
law, any idea, anything palpable or impalpable 
that develops, this rise into complexity and return 
enriched to simplicity holds good. 

Nor, to repeat, can one cut across in a return to 
the starting point. He merely brings back his 


140 CREDO 


complexities with him. ‘The scientist still in the 
intricacies of experiment cannot state his problem 
simply: only when it has ceased to be a problem, 
only after he has completed his experiments, can 
he express his thesis with the simple lucidity of 
one who knows. If it be acknowledged that 
radio-activity may by the subtraction of electrons 
result in an elemental resimplification, the process 
cannot be otherwise than orderly. Uranium, by 
any conceivable process, could not at once throw 
off ninety-one of its free electrons to become 
hydrogen. In its loss of constituents it must pass 
back down the arc,—ninety-one UXz., ninety 
for thorium and so on. It is an invariable process 
that may be studied anywhere in nature, anywhere 
in activity of any sort whether social, material, 
historical, psychological, biological,—what you 
will. One has only to look about one. 


IV 


That is the second consideration we are to notice. 
The third follows naturally from it, and is as 
susceptible to observation in whatever direction 
one looks, and whatever the type of process one ex- 
amines. It is this: 


CREDO 141 


No creature, no law, no idea, no thing palpable 
or impalpable can abruptly, at any point short of 
the completed circle, break off to return to its 
inception or origin. In other words, again, there 
are no shortcuts. 

The circle of function may, of course, be large 
or small. It may, as we have seen, be a compli- 
cated building one by one of near a hundred 
physical elements from the primordial ether, 
their perfection through embodiment, and their 
gradual and graceful resimplification through 
radio-activity: the whole process consuming zons 
of time and extending in prospect beyond the 
vision of all but the farthest speculation. Or its 
circumscribing may be performed almost in the 
space of a breath. All the processes of nature 
seem to be laid before us for our edification on 
this point. We can see the process in any size 
that suits us, in any magnitude fitted for our ex- 
amination. But always it is the completed circle. 
So universal is this law in the cases of all things 
we are capable of understanding that we have no 
intellectual right, short of an absolute proof to the 
contrary, to deny its application to those things 
we do not comprehend. 


142 CREDO 


And from these considerations we can deduce 
that differentiations of consciousness also must 
have a circle of function to round out, that they 
cannot return to original simplicity—and hence to 
original source—until their functions are fulfilled. 
No such differentiation in the finite can remerge 
into the All-consciousness of the infinite until that 
particular circle of evolution,—of which we are 
part—has been closed. At no point short of a 
completion of the whole scheme can any one of 
those differentiations break down and merge with 
the Absolute. They are, and must remain, intact. 


V 


This may be conceived to be true of differentia- 
tions of consciousness, what we have called qual- 
ities of consciousness. But that by no means 
logically follows as to the particular manifestations 
of each quality. It may be true of the bee quality, 
in essence, but not necessarily of the individual 
bees. The Idea is intact and must follow in its 
circle the rest of finity, but the individual may 
quite satisfactorily and completely round its own 
little circle of function and remerge, at the point 
of regained simplicity, with its quality. It will 


CREDO 143 


continue as an individual as long as—and only as 
long as—its own circle is incomplete. 

The duration of continuity, then, in the case of 
the individual, may be considered as coincidental 
with the complete rounding of its own circle, the 
complete fulfilling of its individual function, 
whatever it may be. 


VI 


The question of survival thus at once defines 
itself. It must become evident that whether any 
one thing completes its circle within the circum- 
stances with which we are familiar, and before 
our physical eyes; or whether those eyes are seeing 
only a segment which rounds its completeness be- 
yond our vision, depends entirely on whether or 
not we are observing a function completely ful- 
filled. 


(Os se Wad BF WUD 


N the case of the lower forms of life we do 
observe the function fulfilled. It is ob- 
viously simple and physical. Its contribu- 

tion as an awareness-mechanism to consciousness 
is completely made in its life struggle. From 
examination of its structure, its habits, its equip- 
ment we are able to evaluate all its possibilities. 
We can find in it no faculty nor aptitude which 
has not its full correspondence in the present 
physical environment. In no individual of the 
species can we discover any special and unique 
talent or genius which its personal extinction will 
remove from the field of effort. It is completely 
interchangeable with any other individual of its 
kind. Any robin will do at the place where the 
robin effort is needed. Remove one fish and 
substitute another—any other of that species—and 
the complete fish business will go forward. Since 


this is so, there can appear to exist no reason why 
144 


CREDO 145 


the individual separateness should display any 
further continuity beyond the obvious purpose 
that has brought it into being. The quality of 
consciousness which it embodies has not fulfilled 
its function, and therefore goes on; but it can do 
so quite as well through other individuals,—any 
other individuals. 

It is only when the separate individual of a 
species develops an originality special and unique 
to itself; when it is no longer a completely inter- 
changeable part with the other manifestations of 
its Idea; when it obviously possesses qualities or 
attributes or powers or obligations of development 
which sweep the arc of its circle beyond the 
highest common denominator of its kind, that we 
are entitled even to surmise any continuity beyond 
what we can see. 

As to what this may actually mean we shall 
examine in the next chapter. For the moment let 
us take it as it stands, and see where it leads. 

Let us conceive an individual creature, then, of 
some species that has by its own effort added some- 
thing of possibility to the sum total of the normal 
possibilities of its species. It has thereby enlarged 
its own fulfilment beyond the normal and ordi- 


146 CREDO 


nary fulfilment of its kind. This fulfilment must 
be rounded out. If it has added a single aptitude 
or attribute or even potentiality, that potentiality 
must be worked out before its owner can be re- 
merged. The circle must be completed before 
that creature can have followed the law of all 
cosmos,—started from primal simplicity, devel- 
oped all its complexities, and so enriched by 
function fulfilled returned to its primal simplicity. 
And this, as we have seen, is in all things pre- 
requisite to remergence with source. 


II 


In the lower creatures,—what we have called 
the interchangeable creatures,—the complete 
rounding out of all potentialities before this re- 
mergence with source seems to be coincidental 
with physical life. The circle of fulfilment and 
the circle of life seem accurately to superimpose 
one on the other. Furthermore, the normal span 
of physical life seems to be only just adequate for 
this complete rounding out. Each adapts itself 
neatly to the other’s dimension. This may be 
most clearly observed in the simplest cases of the 
very lowest forms of life; but once the principle is 


CREDO 147 


grasped one can trace its action in higher and 
higher species. That is to say, one can trace it 
up to the point where the individual specimens of 
the species are not completely standardized: 
where in every case one specimen could not be 
substituted for any other specimen without altera- 
tion of the scheme. 

Since, then, the fulfilled functioning of those 
powers, or attributes, or abilities or possibilities 
which belong to the species as a whole do so 
accurately fill just to the brim the duration of 
physical life, it must follow that any added powers 
or attributes or possibilities in the case of one 
Or more super-specimens of that species must re- 
quire more room for completed functioning than 
the ordinary standardized specimens require. In 
other words, in these particular cases the circum- 
ference is enlarged, the cycle extended. It can 
no longer accurately superimpose on the physical 
circle. The duration of that particular creature’s 
fulfilment must extend at least a little beyond the 
physical life we see. It may not be for long: 
the arc may extend but a slender new moon into 
the invisible; but it is a definite continuity for all 
that. Before that bit of separate consciousness 


148 CREDO 


can have returned to its starting point, which it 
must do before it can remerge with its source, it 
must have finished its effort begun. 

As long as we confine our consideration to the 
very lowest forms of life capable of this individual 
development we are compelled to admit the pos- 
sibility that completed functioning of these new 
and feeble but individual attributes might take 
place, not in an extension of continuity beyond 
death, but in a more active life this side of death. 
But as we raise our vision up the scale we begin to 
see that, no matter how we may crowd our hours, 
the circle of physical existence is becoming too 
contracted to admit complete fulfilment. No 
matter how active and varied an existence the 
creature may live, it literally cannot find room to 
fulfil not only its specific functions, which it has 
in common with all its kind, but also its acquired 
individual functions. It needs, it must have more 
space. The segment of its circle must push into 
the invisible. 


Ii 


This is not immortality, as we loosely define it, 
but it is a continuity beyond what we can see. It 


CREDO 149 
is what we might call a germ of immortality. 
Furthermore, this is to be noted: that the seg- 
ment of the circle which does so extend into the 
invisible is just that portion which is individual. 
It is what has been added by the creature’s own 
and unique effort. And so we come upon a great 
and illuminating thought: that any continuity 
beyond the physical life is not an inherent gift, 
but an earned thing. It is gained by the individ- 
ual and personal effort of each creature; and in 
no other way! Whatever life there may be be- 
yond death is the direct result of individual and 
personal construction, by effort of free will; 
applied, perhaps through a long evolution, but 
nevertheless a matter entirely of individual 
building. 


IV 


In the higher forms of consciousness, as we 
know them, then, there would seem to be two 
circles of fulfilment. One belongs to the quality 
of consciousness, the species. The individual 
holds it in common with all other creatures of his 
kind. If he held nothing else, he would remerge, 





1See Chapter XI for further discussion of this point 


150 CREDO 


cease to exist, when that circle is rounded out; 
which would be at the moment of physical death. 
The other circle is peculiar and individual to 
himself, and is the result of his own effort. Its 
diameter is a precise measure of that effort. The 
continuity it represents may be much or it may 
be little; but it is a definite achievement. The 
thing he has builded has enlarged his circle so that 
its necessary rounding out will extend his duration 
definitely and personally and individually. 
Nevertheless that circle also must at any given 
moment have a defined radius. There must be a 
point in time when it will have completed itself. 
A sufficient knowledge and intelligence should 
theoretically be able to predict any creature’s 
“expectation of life” as the life insurance people 
have it, at any one time. Such a forecast would, 
however, be accurate only for that one time. It 
seems likely that in any duration so gained there 
must be so many opportunities for further effort 
and further building that a continuous process of 
enlargement must take place. Except in the 
hypothetical case of a creature that absolutely and 
completely “stood pat” on past achievement; ex- 
cept one ceased all effort, relapsed into a dead in- 


CREDO ist 


ertia, contenting oneself with a stolid concentra- 
tion within one’s present self, there must be a grad- 
ual and certain extension of the expectation of life. 

For whatever expectation of life has been 
achieved by effort must be fulfilled. The circle, 
such as it now is, must be rounded out. Nothing 
that has been earned of immortality can be de- 
stroyed or lost. Even if one sat tight and lived out 
only the possibilities he at present possesses, he 
must fulfil those possibilities completely. Though 
it is theoretically possible for the soul to be ex- 
tinguished as a separate and individual entity, it is 
only possible at the end of its expectation of im- 
mortality based upon its past building. And even 
then only in the almost impossible event that it 
become inert, deadened to its opportunities and 
obligations of increasing life. 

From that point of view the so-called deterrent 
or destructive or retrogressive influences and 
activities and omissions, which broadly we call 
evil, are not really disintegrating forces. ‘They 
can have no effect on whatever meed of continu- 
ity the soul has actually gained. But they may 
be very definitely preventives of immortality’s 
extension, 


152 CREDO 


Vv 


In that thought may be found a tremendous 
inspiration. We have no birthright of life; but 
we have a definite opportunity. As no two crea- 
tures of the higher orders are precisely alike, so 
the immediate expectation of continuity of no two 
creatures can be exactly the same. Some have 
already sketched wider circles than others. Even 
in the human quality of consciousness people differ 
widely in their states of development. Some are 
what one might call young souls; others are what 
one might call old souls. The young souls, what- 
ever their strength and vigour, and whatever their 
possibilities of extension through the exercise of 
those attributes, must have descried, at this mo- 
ment, a smaller circle than those of higher de- 
velopment. If the whole process could be 
stopped short right now, and the Scheme go for- 
ward solely by the momentum already acquired, 
the undeveloped would continue a much shorter 
period than the developed who have long builded. 
But the whole process is not stopped short: it is 
going on. ‘There seems to me every reason to 





1 See Chapter XI for a discussion of reincarnation. 


CREDO 153 


believe that any human being, except possibly in 
the rarest of instances, is sufficiently endowed with 
a surplus of vitality over the demands on it, with 
enough of capacity to receive and of energy to 
accomplish to be able to enlarge his consciousness 
ahead of his own proper timepiece, so to speak. 
His circle enlarges in advance of his overtaking it. 
Barring conscious and persistent contrary effort 
on his part, he seems probably destined to extend 
his continuity until his own circle is coincident 
with the circle of the finite itself. 

He has, in general, a decent margin to work on. 
Already even the lowest type of human being 
has come into possession of faculties and tenden- 
cies and attributes the fulfilling of which is 
manifestly impossible in the physical life. The 
segment of his arc sweeps widely into the in- 
visible. It would be difficult to find a man so 
mean that one could not say of him that if physical 
death really ended him, he was not cut off un- 
timely. And we would say it because of the 
profound realization that seemingly a broad prep- 
aration has been made for which there is no room 
for conclusion. 


CHAPTER XI 


OW let us take up the whole question 
from a quite different standpoint. Let 
us go back to the individual. By the 

criterion we have as yet imperfectly outlined, at 





what point in the scale—if at all—does it persist 
as an individual beyond the brief manifestation in 
substance which we observe? 

Duration would go on as long as the individual 
could remember itself. ‘That is well enough as a 
definition, or a handle to take hold of, but it does 
not get us far in our answer. As nearly as we can 
reason it seems probable—at least rational—that 
the very lowest forms of life are, as individuals, 
merely awareness-mechanisms of their quality. 
They are projections in substance of that particu- 
lar intention, as far as it has developed up to that 
point. Their lives are conducted by a series of 
reactions to stimuli. ‘Those reactions are in ac- 
cordance with the wisdom of their race, rather 

154 


CREDO 155 


than with any personal judgments of their own. 
Their consciousness is the consciousness possessed 
by their quality. They are like feelers sent out 
experimentally into substance. They have indi- 
vidual life, in that they are separate things pos- 
sessed of a sense of separateness; but they probably 
have not as yet personal life, in the sense of exer- 
Cising intelligent choice through memory. Their 
appearance of choice is most likely conditioned by 
the stimuli they receive; and that there is a choice 
at all is due to race experience and wisdom— 
through their quality of consciousness—as to 
which particular reaction to which particular 
stimulus is most advantageous. ‘There have been 
many interesting experiments on these lines, nota- 
bly as to the invariable reactions of aquarium fish 
to lights. So striking were the results that one of 
our best known naturalists was carried away by 
them to the point of absurdity, and gravely postu- 
lated that the singing of birds indicated nothing 
of individual joy and rapture, but was merely a 
mechanical and automatic response to such things 
as the rays of the sun or a warm current of air! 
‘That, by any sober examination, seems nonsense. 
Things do not work along quite such direct lines 


156 CREDO 


when we consider so complex a creature as the 
bird. But in the case of the simplest organisms 
we know, there seems no reason to ascribe any- 
thing like memory.’ There is no occasion for 
memory. ‘The amceba does not need to remember 
what to do the next time a drought threatens or it 
turns cold. He knew what to do the first time, 
quite perfectly. His conduct in the exigencies of 
life is carefully arranged for him by his reactions; 
and they in turn are provided for by his physical 
and nervous equipment; and they, once more, are 
the epitome of the wisdom possessed by his rather 
limited quality of consciousness. ‘There is, to re- 
peat, no necessity of his having a memory. He is 
an individual, in that at any given moment he 
realizes and acts upon his separateness from the 
things about him. It is to be doubted that he is 
a person in the sense of remembering himself even 
from moment to moment. 


1 Nevertheless certain experiments render this point not at all cer- 
tain. It may be that certain protozoa exhibit learning-process 
through memory. ‘The point is unimportant to the general reasoning. 
It merely pushes the exact point lower down. Therefore I retain 
the above illustration. See Jennings, Behavior of the Lower Or- 
ganisms; and Ladd and Woodsworth, Elements of Physiological 
Psychology. 


CREDO 157 


That obtains to our apparent satisfaction only 
very low down in the scale. As far as I have been 
able to discover no experiments devised up to now 
have shown the slightest trace of memory in such 
creatures. But we do not have to climb very far 
before we begin to find such traces. Miss Ger- 
trude White by means of coloured discs showed 
distinct evidences of memory in minnows. She 
suspended food before a red disc and imitation 
food before a blue disc. After a number of ex- 
periences the minnows learned to come whenever 
a red disc was offered, but ignored the blue. 
Professor Yerkes experimented along similar lines 
with a turtle “of retiring disposition.” On the 
path of its habitual retreat toward its rest he 
planted a simple maze. ‘The turtle’s first pene- 
tration of this maze was of course by blunder- 
ing chance, and took 35 minutes. On its next 
attempt, two hours later, however, it got through 
in 15 minutes. The third trial, also after a two 
hours’ intermission, consumed 5 minutes. By the 
twentieth experiment the turtle knew its route and 
made the journey in 45 seconds. This was of 
course true experience and memory wisdom. 

To be sure the fish and the turtle are com- 


158 CREDO 


paratively high in the scale, but the examples are 
good ones. Similar experiments on much lower 
forms of life would undoubtedly enable us more 
closely to approximate the line—or rather the 
broad and indeterminate band—where the indi- 
vidual becomes the person; where the purely re- 
flex manifestation of the quality of consciousness 
requires the rudiments of amemory. It would be 
found wherever the creature needs a memory. 


II 


We must next pause to notice for a moment a 
simple and obvious idea. We have become accus- 
tomed to the various qualities into which con- 
sciousness itself has developed; which qualities 
represent themselves or manifest themselves or 
embody themselves in the various kinds of crea- 
tures and things in the finite universe. It is 
now necessary to note that each of these qual- 
ities of consciousness itself possesses certain atért- 
butes. 

That is self-evident. ‘The dog quality possesses 
the attribute of loyalty, of affinity for human be- 
ings, of pugnacity, of passion for investigation, 
and what-not, the sum of all of which make up his 


CREDO 159 


essential dogginess. He also develops in the 
course of his life experience many other attributes 
which though present as potentialities at the be- 
ginning were entirely latent. The human quality 
possesses a myriad of attributes, some of which 
have been developed to a very high point, others 
of which are in the course of development, and 
still others of which are merely shadowed as pos- 
sibilities. But either as a dog, or as a human be- 
ing, or as anything else in creation, each is com- 
posed of the sum of all the attributes of its quality 
of consciousness. ‘They are a// there, whether de- 
veloped or not, in every physical manifestation. 
If, for convenience, we consider the dog quality to 
consist of X number of attributes, then in order to 
have an expression of that quality in matter—in 
order to have any puppies—it is necessary that 
the whole number be present. If one could build 
a puppy as one builds a Ford car, one could not 
assemble the puppy with X—I attributes. If we 
are to consider the puppy as the manifestation in 
substance of the dog quality, then obviously there 
could be no such manifestation unless the dog 
quality is completely represented. Otherwise it 
would not be the dog quality. When we went to 


160 CREDO 

work to assemble that puppy we would have to 
rummage around in the dog quality to find him a 
full set of parts. 

Any quality of consciousness is the sum of all its 
attributes: all these attributes must be present po- 
tentially in every created thing representing that 
quality. 


Iil 


Now let us go back to the first individual— 
whatever we may assume it to be—that shows even 
a trace of personal memory. By analogy with all 
other methods of development we are safe in as- 
suming that it will not be much of a memory and 
that it will not endure very long. Perhaps from 
one moment to the next would be its scope. Little 
by little, as the creature expands its new faculty 
by use, it will reciprocally find more use for it. 
That new use will in turn extend it. The crea- 
ture remembers to-night what happened to it in 
the morning, and adapts itself to the situation as 
well as it can, not solely by the mechanical reflex 
of its instinct, but also by its memory of a situa- 
tion. For the first time the tremendously stimu- 
lating power of individual intelligence comes into 


CREDO 161 


play. And the individual, to as yet a very limited 
extent, has become a person. 

As I conceive it, this extension of memory 
would be very slow. It is probable that a long 
evolution must take place before the creature can 
remember back very far. He would be quite well 
along in the scale before his duration of personal- 
ity would extend from one end of his life to the 
other, before he could remember the course of his 
days here on earth. 

But long before that would happen he would 
have gained the great privilege of being able 
through his own intelligent effort to enrich his 
contribution to his quality of consciousness. As 
an individual person, not as a mere feeler or an- 
tenna projected by the quality into substance, not 
as a mechanical awareness-mechanism only, he is 
able to construct experience. That is his own gift, 
according to his own energy and capacity. It 
represents the germ of many things,—the power 
of choice that will in time dignify itself as free 
will; personality; immortality itself. 

Note I say the germ of these things; not neces- 
sarily the things themselves. If all the sign posts 
of nature point in the right direction these 


162 CREDO 


too must be incubated and guarded and fostered 
and developed before they are born as actual 
things. 

In order that an individual creature be in itself 
a permanently enduring creature, it must possess 
_tn enduring form all the attributes of its quality. 
It would not be sufficient to possess even X—I of 
these attributes. If the I lacks, the machine 
could not be assembled as a completely enduring 
machine. Even if we conceive that some individ- 
ual creature, because of great strength of person- 
ality, died carrying with it back to its quality of 
consciousness some enduring attribute individual 
to itself, we could not consider that creature as a 
whole to be immortal unless it was complete in 
itself. It might have contributed into its quality 
in enduring form one or more of the “makings” 
of a new manifestation, so to speak, but not all of 
the makings. We may conceive, however, that at 
some point in the general upward progress of qual- 
ities of consciousness there comes a time when the 
individual leaving life and merging back into its 





1 Not in each individual case fully-developed form. Think of us 
imperfect human beings! Also the word “enduring” must not be 
taken as eternally enduring; only as possessing some degree of con- 
tinuity beyond the visible. 


CREDO 163 


quality, as the dust mote left the sun, carries with 
it a little self-contained glow of its own, so to 
speak. This glow is very faint and very simple. 
It is a resultant of specialized experience which 
wears grooves deep enough to contain a little 
memory in one form or another that is peculiar to 
itself. Perhaps it may also result from especial 
effort of some sort. At any rate, that particular 
mote, drifting out of the sun ray, is not completely 
blotted out by the darkness. 

But that which persists beyond the specialized 
earth life is not a complete individual manifesta- 
tion of its quality. It does not contain in itself as 
an entity all the X attributes. It is woefully in- 
complete, a mere fragment, a specific emphasizing 
of what by chance or effort or exuberance of life 
has been especially developed. If, to resume our 
figure, we were to assemble a new creature of this 
species from all the attributes of that particular 
quality, we would be able to use these ready-made 
enduring parts in our construction, and they 
would be the same parts that had been used be- 
fore; but we would have to make other parts to 
complete the machine. Or perhaps we might 
find other ready-made parts from some other 


164. CREDO 


scrapped machine, and use them. ‘These few 
things that may, through a vitality gained by de- 
velopment, be conceived to have survived individ- 
ually the physical dissolution of the entity are not 
themselves an Individual. But, persisting, they 
may become the nucleus for another individual. 
The faint glow they have carried over into the 
darkness may serve to call to themselves, by some 
law of attraction or affinity, all the other attributes 
they need to fill out the completeness of their 
quality, so that again they may be part of a mani- 
festation of that quality. This new manifestation 
may be said to carry within itself not immortality, 
but the germ of immortality. 

This is, of course, pure speculation. It is 
merely a picture of how personality might grow. 
The precise method is purely—perhaps some may 
say wildly—hypothetical. It is suggested merely 
as a reasonable possibility; reasonable because in 
essential process, if not in precise method, it fol- 
lows every other process we have observed in na- 
ture. It represents merely an extension of the 
premises. It falls within observed laws, and de- 
mands for itself the formulation of no new rules 
or processes, the performance of no “miracles.” 


CREDO 165 


It is in line with the customary and established 
procedures that obtain in the rest of observed 
cosmos. 

This becomes plainer if we follow the supposed 
process a little farther. Out of the X number of 
attributes necessary to complete any quality let 
us suppose that three have thus survived as endur- 
ing beyond the visible and have become the nu- 
cleus of a new being. In time this three will be- 
come four, by development either in this or in 
some other entity. After still another period the 
four will become five. It is accretion; and prob- 
ably by a geometrical ratio, for the same orig- 
inality or persistence or endurance or exuberance 
or vitality that carried over the original three 
would in all probability persist, and in continued 
operation strengthen not only themselves but their 
associated attributes. 

During this process of evolution the individual 
beings possessing these enduring attributes are 
nevertheless not in themselves completely continu- 
ing. In order tnat such should after death retain 
its complete outline, it would have to possess in 
enduring form all the attributes of its quality. 
It would not do for it to possess merely X —I of 


166 CREDO 


those attributes. If one lacked, it would be sup- 
plied from its quality, and the next manifestation 
of that particular group of attributes would there- 
fore be a mixed, a mew individual. 

But supposing, by happy accident or long fo- 
cussed development, or whatever, some individ- 
ual did attain enduring completeness of attribute, 
and died, but nevertheless went on. Would it per- 
sist even for a time as a continuing member of its 
quality? It seems improbable. Whyr For the 
simple reason that it would doubtless have by then 
acquired potentialities above and beyond the X 
attributes constituting its present quality. In cor- 
respondence it would before its next manifestation 
have attracted to itself at least one attribute which 
is not inherent in its former quality of conscious- 
ness. Because of that inclusion its quality would 
now be different. It must embody itself differ- 
ently. Its sum of attributes, from the standpoint 
of its former quality, is no longer merely the com- 
plete X. It is X plus I. The X qualities de- 
manded an awareness-mechanism in one form. X 
plus I would demand another awareness-mechan- 
ism which will express also the I. That would 
be a quality above the old quality. 


CREDO 167 


Thus we see, as we should expect, the germ of 
immortality beginning very far down in the scale; 
and we see that its development must be slow; 
and that it must culminate in the completed pro- 
duct only after a long course of evolution. That 
is in line with other processes in cosmos. It is 
still a germ. It is not completely personal 
continuity. It could not be manifested as a con- 
tinuing creature because it is not yet complete, or 
anywhere near complete. ‘To become complete it 
must attract to itself, or have added to itself in the 
course of evolution, from or by its quality, all the 
other elements necessary to completeness. And 
these are both changing, and of overwhelming ma- 
jority. ‘There is, to repeat, a germ of continuity, 
feebly working and growing, but no continuity of 
the rounded self-contained thing we call an entity. 
It must develop, grow; as all other things in the 
universe develop and grow. 


IV 


When is that? Where can this germ manage to 
recruit to itself all the elements of completeness in 
continuing forme With man? or with lower ani- 
mals than man? ‘That is, of course, impossible to 


168 CREDO 


say. Nor, do I believe, could it be answered by 
such a statement as that it begins with, say, horses 
or dogs or canary birds or anything else. Why 
not? For the very simple reason that it is per- 
sonal, individual, not specific. Theoretically, 
it might begin, im the one case, with a horse. 
And he alone out of all his horse quality might be 
the only one to have developed—by some happy 
concatenation—all the elements of consciousness 
in continuing form. But one could hardly on that 
account make the general statement that contin- 
uity begins with horses;—or dogs—or canary 
birds! 

Or it may be that only in the case of man him- 
self does that completeness of element obtain. 

We cannot speak with any assurance on that 
point, but our mathematical formula may help us 
to some interesting speculations. If X is the sum 
of the continuing attributes acquired by any indi- 
vidual, and Y is the sum of the attributes of con- 
sciousness, then X — Y—I is not a continuing 
complete creature. As soon as it acquires the I it 
is. Is there any one attribute of consciousness 
which is obviously the last to be acquired in evolu- 


CREDO 169 


tion as we know it? If so the point of acquisition 
of that attribute in continuing form is quite likely 
to be the point at which the creature begins as a 
complete and continuing entity. 

It is, of course, difficult to pick out such an at- 
tribute. But of them all the altruistic affection 
we call love seems to us to be at once the highest 
and the most inclusive of all the qualities of con- 
sciousness we know; and since it is the highest, we 
may presume it to be the last to be acquired in 
personal and enduring form. ‘The word love is 
a sticky word with too many connotations of senti- 
mentality, of wishy-washiness, of bestiality, of 
“sweetness and light,” but it is the only word I can 
find. It must be stripped of those connotations, 
and understood in its primal simplicity and 
strength. So understood how would it be to 
adopt it as a measure in our search for the real 
personality? 

At first glance that seems not so bad a rough 
definition. We can all distinguish by the feel, as 
one might say, between beings that have personal- 
ity and those who have not. It is certainly not the 
human quality that makes the difference. We all 


170 CREDO 


know dogs or cats or horses that are very distinctly 
“persons,” or come mighty near being such;? in 
contrast to swarms of dogs and cats and horses 
that are simply horses and cats and dogs. The 
former possess some element of character that the 
latter lack. ‘This element may very well be the 
capacity for love. 

But the briefest consideration shows us that this 
will not do. Maternal affection exists well down 
the scale in specimens where we find no trace of 
that undefinable but unmistakable personality. 
Affection for the mate likewise. ‘There are many 
instances, too, where one can distinguish at least a 
convincing appearance of purely altruistic action. 
if have seen, in Central Africa, the hartebeest go 
out of his way, and directly into danger, to arouse 
members not only of his own but of other species 
to the fact of my presence. Single members of 
this species are prone to mount high termite 
hills in the noon hours, when all the animal world 
takes its siesta, there to stand as vigilant sentinels. 
Of course one might argue that these are merely 





1] find that some who have read this Mss constantly tend to 
forget that for immortality it is not sufficient merely to possess an 
attribute:—that might be only a quality manifestation. It must 
possess the attribute in personally enduring form. 


CREDO 171 


exceptionally nervous individuals intent on saving 
their own skins; but as a matter of fact the senti- 
nels are not always the same, and instances have 
been observed where one replaces or relieves an- 
other who has stood his trick. Wounded ele- 
phants are often helped from the field by their 
comrades. Friendships, having apparently noth- 
ing to do with sex or protection, are familiar to us 
among our domestic animals. But they are also 
not uncommon among wild beasts. I knew of 
such a friendship between a wildebeest and a 
Thompson’s gazelle. This incongruous pair 
dwelt near Kapiti and I had a chance to observe 
them for several days. They went everywhere to- 
gether. Sometimes they mingled with a herd of 
other game, but often they were off by themselves. 
All this is love and affection in one form or an- 
other. Some of it is particular and individual, as 
in the cases last mentioned; some of it is partially 
a specific characteristic, as the hartebeest or the 
permanent mating of eagles, wild geese, possibly 
lions; some of it is practically universal, like 
maternal affection. Love, without further defini- 
tion, would seem to be too comprehensive. 

In all this, however, we can discover one broad 


172 CREDO 


principle. The wild animal’s affections are di- 
rected principally toward his own species. Only 
rarely, and incidentally, are they directed toward 
other kinds of animals. The wildebeest and the 
“Tommy” seem to be merely an interesting ex- 
ception. The hartebeest’s warnings of danger 
were directed toward his own kind of people—the 
grazing game. I cannot imagine his bothering 
with wart hog, for example, or baboons. A great 
part of this sort of love might be classed as largely 
instinctive, a part of the wisdom of quality. We 
speak of the maternal instinct. It is extended and 
amplified and made personal; it contains the 
germ; but it is still, in general, inextricably 
mingled with the instinctive activity that informs 
the details of everyday life. This, of course, we 
should expect. Love, too, is an attribute, obtain- 
ing by experience its enduring quality. 

But in the case of some domesticated animals,— 
notably the dog—whose opportunities of experi- 
ence have been much extended by their associa- 
tions, the relationship of affection is voluntarily 
extended to include human beings. Much of this 
relationship, also, we must recognize, is instinc- 
tive. Itis a heritage of wisdom from the memory 


CREDO 173 


and experience of the dog quality. The dog 
quality has found that it pays to be associated with 
man. In the remote past, and throughout all the 
ages since, it has proved to be a profitable partner- 
ship. <A three-weeks-old puppy, possessed of no 
wisdom of personal experience at all, will illus- 
trate to anyone’s satisfaction. When growled at 
by some dignified and grouchy patriarch of his 
own species, he will fly shrieking, not to his 
mother, but to the nearest human being. His in- 
stinct is toward man. And if he grows up to be 
merely one of a pack, and if it conceivably could 
happen that he should never come into more than 
formal relationship with any human being, then 
his attitude throughout life would remain much 
the same. He would retain his alliance with 
man; he would hunt with him, perhaps fight for 
him; he would remain in his vicinity, and would 
manifest toward him a sort of loose loyalty in 
preference to the rest of the animal world. But 
it would still remain an instinctive affection. 

If, on the other hand, as quite often happens, he 
lives from his early youth in intimate and sym- 
pathetic contact with an understanding master, he 
is capable of astonishing development in person- 


174 CREDO 


ality. This is no place for dog stories, nor is their 
repetition necessary. One is limited indeed who 
cannot recollect many individual examples of 
loyalty, devotion, unselfish love, and at times the 
highest sacrifice. 

I must emphasize the word individual. From 
even intimate human contact it seems probable 
that most domestic dogs acquire little more than 
an accelerated opportunity to develop the birth- 
right they have received from their quality,—to 
fill out that particular level. But of certain par- 
ticular exceptions we are accustomed to say, even 
in common speech, that they are ‘‘almost human.” 
It may be that we are not too far from the mark; 
that in those cases the sum total of personally con- 
tinuing attributes is approaching the complete Y; 
that in Y—I the I has almost disappeared. 

If I were, then, to attempt, in view of all these 
considerations, a formulation—which must by its 
nature be purely speculative—I should cast it 
about like this: 

The soul? is born when the individual, of Ais 
own volition, looks with love not only outside but 





1 The completely continuing personality. 


CREDO 176 


above himself. In other words, when he makes 
for himself a god. 

That formula must be taken on very broad lines. 
It does not attempt to fix an exact point of time. 
But it might serve broadly to define a symptom, 
to act as a marker indicating about the stage of 
development when we could reasonably expect 
personal immortality, to indicate approximately 
when the attributes of the individual seem to have 
reached the fullness which shall endure. ‘Then 
the soul is born. 


CHAPTER XII 


ORN where? born howr we may ask. 

We cannot answer that; but we can make 

one positive statement in regard to it. 

That is, that no individual consciousness can exist 
without embodiment in substance. There can 
be no such thing as a “disembodied spirit.” Pure 
spirit is possible only as an infinite thing. When 
conditioned by space and time any consciousness 
whatever is inseparable from life and substance. 
I hope we have made that clear in the first part of 
this work. So if we are to postulate continuity at 
all, we cannot escape the truth that every individ- 
ual consciousness is continuously and at all times 
possessed of some sort of a body, an awareness- 
mechanism expressed in substance. Otherwise it 
instantly ceases to be an individual consciousness 
and becomes identical with infinite consciousness. 


The body, as we know, may cease to be the body 
176 


CREDO 177 


we have on earth, but it must have substance and 
be an awareness-mechanism. Furthermore, that 
body of substance—whatever its constitution and 
form—must at the moment of death be in posses- 
sion of the individual consciousness. We cannot 
conceive the latter leaving the one body and 
transferring itself to the other. It would suffer 
obliteration en route. 

What the form or constitution may be of this 
new bodily expression is unknown; or what its 
powers; or what the environment and corre- 
spondences it must meet. We may be certain, 
however, that it will be an expression of the human 
quality of consciousness and that it will serve as 
an awareness-mechanism. It may be an enduring 
body; or it too, like this earth body, may suffer 
replacement when the especial conditions to which 
it is adapted become outgrown or outworn. That 
does not matter. It may be that upon death we 
enter fully upon an “immortal” or “spiritual” 
body, and it may be that we merely come into 
possession of another temporary affair, like the 
somewhat decrepit rattletrap we are at present 
driving. But if we survive we shall have a body, 
made out of substance. 


178 CREDO 


‘i 


This, in my belief, is the real basis of the 
reincarnation idea. Reincarnation, in the gener- 
ally accepted use of the word, is merely a very 
specialized way of looking at the same truth. 
According to it people die and eventually find 
themselves in possession of a new body, just as we 
have outlined above; only this new body is the same 
sort of body again, and it will exist on this same 
earth. ‘Thus any human soul that has at all devel- 
oped must have led a long series of lives—such as 
we know. Some people claim to have been able to 
recollect fragments of some of their past existences. 

The idea is sound at the bottom, and is based 
on rational grounds. It is very unreasonable to 
assume that the allotted seventy years should decide 
a man’s status for the rest of his existence. Con- 
sidering the brevity of time, the limited choice 
among the multitude of possibilities, and what 
appears to be a decided lack of the square deal 
when it comes to luck, opportunity and personal 
endowment, the contention becomes frivolous. 
Only a most orthodox and theology bewildered 


CREDO 179 


medizvalist can honestly and literally, in the 
depths of his real and not on the surface of his con- 
ventional belief, see any sense in that proposition. 
The injustice, not to say idiocy, of such an arrange- 
ment shrieks aloud for at least a modifying corol- 
lary. Even the medievalist supplied something 
of the sort in the shape of arbitrary and inconse- 
quent merciful interpositions. His god was able 
to “save” any chance miserable sinner—if his 
mood happened to be right. 

The classical reincarnation theory was an at- 
tempt to make a modifying corollary not quite so 
dependent on caprice. By its tenets a man was 
not bound forever by his performances in one life. 
He came back to try it again; and yet again until 
he had learned all there was to be learned, and had 
all the chances any reasonable man could ask. 
The conditions in which he found himself were 
determined by his previous incarnations. If he 
had done well, he found himself in favorable cir- 
cumstances; and if he had done il], he discovered 
that he had come down in the world and would 
have to try again with less in his favour. The 
adherents of metempsychosis added another and 


180 CREDO 


picturesque touch. According to them the hog- 
gish man was quite likely to be reincarnated as a 
hog. 

Now there can be no quarrel with the general 
principle underlying all this. There is no reason, 
that we know, why it may not be true in detail. 
But logic is against quite so narrow an application. 
There is no question that the soul is “reincarnated” 
in the sense that it occupies a body of some sort. 
If it were not, it would, as we have seen, cease 
to exist. Its germ in the course of development 
must have been so reincarnated many times. Pos- 
sibly, perhaps probably, it will in the future find 
itself in a great variety of developmental surround- 
ings, to each of which an especial or different sort 
of awareness-mechanism is appropriate. In that 
case it will also find itself successively possessed 
of a number of bodies of varying types. Perhaps 
it may die into these bodies; perhaps one body 
may merely develop into another. It is not un- 
likely that for one reason or another some indi- 
viduals may again find the elements they need for 
their personal evolution in earth conditions, and so 
indeed be “reborn” here. All these things fall 
logically within our framework. 


CREDO 181 


But that the latter should invariably be the case 
is not so reasonable. It is, I think, only another 
example of our incurable cosmic provincialism. 
We always like to think of our little planet as the 
centre of a somewhat extensive visible universe. 
One of our bitterest historical resentments was 
against Copernicus for showing that everything 
did not revolve about us. Indeed, for some time 
we refused absolutely to believe him, and visited 
on him that sweet reasonableness which accom- 
panies our disbeliefs. ‘There is no basis whatever, 
except this provincialism, for assuming that our 
tiny planet is the only developing ground for qual- 
ity. We have a great variety of combinations 
here, to be sure; but they must be nothing to the 
variety of combinations that exist elsewhere. 

And any given quality of consciousness, as we 
remember, tends to manifest itself where the condi- 
tions for it are most suitable. It goes where it 
finds its need answered. We are here on this 
earth—-unsatisfactory as it seems to many—because 
it is the sort of thing we need at the present time, 
disagreeable and unjust and burdensome as it may 
appear tosome. But in infinite possibility it must 
represent a very small proportion. 


182 CREDO 


Classical reincarnation thus is disclosed to be a 
half-truth. It may well be that a soul is reborn 
again and again in one environment. If so, it 
must be learning slowly. There must, to repeat, 
be an infinity of possible environments with an in- 
finity of different-conditions; sufficient to answer 
with delicacy the finer adjustments of all possible 
needs. ‘The reason life manifests itself here rather 
than there, or there rather than here, is because the 
individuality that manifests that particular bit of 
life for the moment needs there rather than here, 
or here rather than there. And if it cannot fulfil 
its needs within a reasonable time, perhaps it 
would do better to change its school! 

It would be rather a joke on those people who 
think they recall a hundred lives on this earth— 
and are therefore proud of their vast experience— 
were they to learn that it has been the same experi- 
ence all the time! 


CHAPTER XIII 


mT is one thing to possess continuity. From 
the personal point of view it is quite another 





, toenjoy continuity. It will avail us little, as 
far as satisfaction goes, if our continuity is divided 
off into segments which have nothing to do one 
with the other. If when we leave the physical 
body we begin an entirely new experience, in com- 
plete oblivion of the existence we have left, we 
might as well be obliterated and be done with it. 
We must remember. And if we are to rest easy 
on a rational faith in survival, we must go further 
and determine whether or not we have reason to 
believe we shall know anything about it. We 
must take up the subject of memory. 


II 


Possibly we have made sufficiently evident the 


distinction between the two kinds of memory. 
183 


184 CREDO 


There was the memory of the quality. of conscious- 
ness to which any creature belongs; and there was 
also the individual memory of that creature. The 
former was best exemplified by those organisms 
that work mainly outside of free will. We saw 
how the millions of experiences of the sand wasp 
were stored away in the memory of its quality, and 
were utilized in its accurate instinct in the matter 
of the caterpillar. That its experiences were ac- 
tually existent in some body of memory that could 
be recollected is proved by those very instincts. 
If they were not stored somehow, in utilizable 
form, they would be lost. Furthermore, we must 
conclude that any experience whatever that hap- 
pens to any creature must touch intimately its qual- 
ity of consciousness for the simple reason that the 
creature must be considered as a sense organ, an 
awareness-mechanism for that quality. And fur- 
thermore again, we are justified in the assumption 
that no memory is ever lost, no matter how insig- 
nificant it may be. Given the need, or the proper 
conditions, it can be “recalled’”—as either a 
definite mental process or as a structure or an in- 
stinct—in complete and clear form. 

All but the last of the foregoing propositions 


CREDO 186 


we have considered before, and in detail. They 
are recapitulated here merely to assemble all ele- 
ments for discussion. That no memory is lost in 
the body of consciousness is logical. However, 
we do not have to depend on logic, for it is now 
established that even in the individual no memory 
is ever lost. We are all familiar enough with the 
fact that at times what we wish to recall aggravat- 
ingly eludes us; we “cannot put our hand on it”; 
it “was on the tip of our tongue.” And then a 
little later, when perhaps it has ceased to be of 
importance, it ‘‘pops into our mind’’—where it has 
been all the time. But that this submerged body 
of memory is complete has only been recently es- 
tablished. Now science tells us that no act, no 
thought, no word of all our lives is actually gone. 
It continues to exist in the “subconscious.” It may 
be so deeply buried that no effort of the conscious 
mind can bring it to recollection. It has as 
completely vanished, as far as our thinking selves 
are concerned, as though it had never been. No 
one can recall his very earliest childhood, for ex- 
ample. ‘There comes a point, as we grope back, 
where events become isolated, far apart. Finally 
the mists close and we can remember no farther. 


186 CREDO 


Nevertheless certain abnormal conditions may 
in the most unexpected fashion bring to the 
surface things that otherwise would have remained 
buried. A shock, great danger, a fever will some- 
times do this. ‘All the events of my life flashed 
before me” is a familiar phrase. This has long 
been understood. It may be favourably observed 
in the case of the supernormal psychology of 
sensitiveness or mediums. ‘There is the classical 
often quoted instance of the girl who, while in 
trance, made long speeches in Greek, a language 
with which she was personally totally unfamiliar. 
It subsequently developed that many years before 
she had been in the employ of a learned man who, 
for his own pleasure, used to declaim aloud sono- 
rous passages from Homer and the Greek dram- 
atists. This fact the girl claimed had slipped her 
mind. Whether it had or not is unimportant. 
The point is that the Greek itself, in all its variety 
and richness, had for many years remained in her 
submerged memory, and could be recalled intact 
by appropriate procedure. Hypnotic experiment 
has led the mind back and back in a most con- 
vincing manner. It would be interesting to 
conduct a series of such experiments to determine 


CREDO 187 


in the first place just how far back into infancy the 
memory could be led; and in the second place to 
see whether that memory would not be found to 
begin with the commencement of a certain type of 
experience. It seems to me probable that it 
would be found co-temporaneous with the first 
activity of the free will. 

The point we are making was many years ago 
strikingly exemplified in an incident that came 
under my own notice. I was rooming in Paris 
with a young man who was very suddenly and very 
deeply disappointed in love. He took it well 
during his waking hours; but when he went to 
bed he entered a state of disassociated conscious- 
ness, which lasted generally two or three hours 
before he fell into normal sleep. During this 
condition he talked. His talk was an exact 
reproduction, not only in words, but in inflection 
and loudness, of things he had said in his past life. 
He began invariably with early childhood and 
worked slowly down to the present, reproducing 
typical scenes of each age. By means of the exact 
words and exclamations he had used he recon- 
structed a hundred trivial incidents. It was like 
listening to one end of a telephone conversation. 


188 CREDO 


I had known the man for many years, and I was 
able to verify the astounding literal accuracy of 
the performance in hearing again his end of 
conversations we had had together, and which I 
myself had utterly forgotten until thus given the 
cue. Each evening a different series of incidents 
was selected. Nearly always they were unimpor- 
tant; and in most cases, as I found by inquiry, had 
passed from the man’s conscious memory com- 
pletely. Yet here they were, as though from a 
phonograph record, with even the little chuckles 
accurately reproduced. 

There is already a considerable literature on the 
subject, which has been named cryptomnesia. It 
all goes to show, astonishing as the fact may seem, 
that nothing is forgotten or lost. 


Ill 


Since this is provably so of the individual, the 
same thing may be predicated for quality memory. 
In consciousness in general must exist all things 
that have been experienced. 

The memory content of an individual must 
necessarily, then, be a mixed sort of thing. Any 
person, as we have seen, retains as part of his own 


CREDO 189 


possession everything that he himself has done or 
thought or experienced. He also falls heir to a 
proportion of this quality memory. He has 
certain “instincts,” which are a direct heritage 
from the race as a race. He has also certain 
bodily organs or functions and automatic reflexes 
and the like which are the direct result of ex- 
perience and experiment, and wisdom thereby 
acquired, by the human _ consciousness-quality. 
Those are examples of memory possession on the 
lower degrees. 

And, conversely, man undoubtedly undergoes 
certain experiences which have more to do with 
his quality than with himself; and which enter 
directly the quality-memory, passing his individual 
memory by. They are his only as he is part of the 
human quality. We do not in any sense of the 
word remember, as individuals, the intricate expe- 
riences we underwent in digesting our food a year 
ago; and yet those experiences may have had a 
powerful effect on some adaptations, through 
quality, going on in the human system. The 
human physical structure is daily undergoing thus 
a multitude of experiences having to do with the 
sensorial and instinctive, and therefore automatic, 


190 CREDO 


end of the spectrum. These alterations and ad- 
aptations may in time modify or change something 
in the structure of future human beings, but they 
have only slight influence on the individual’s own 
final structure. A great many of these expe- 
riences, such as the beating of the heart, are beyond 
conscious control; and equally beyond individual 
memory. 

Nevertheless they enter the store of quality 
memory and are available to the “likes of us.” A 
great deal of this storehouse of memory is at least 
partly open to us. We are constantly using it 
subconsciously, and to a small extent consciously. 
We are continually “remembering” from that 
store. Every time we take a breath, we are 
remembering the moment when, urged by mount- 
ing exuberance of life, we crawled out on the shore 
of some primordial sea. All our bodily functions, 
all our delicate physical adjustments are memories 
of long past experiences; of trials and errors, and 
failures, and trials again. 

But we must not lose sight of the fact that this 
structural and more or less automatic type of 
memory is only a small portion of what our human 
quality has experienced and must remember. The 


CREDO IQI 


merely physical life is, and for a long time has 
been, a relatively unimportant minority in the sum 
of human existence. There is, in the correspond- 
ence to this higher life, a body of memory which, 
like the memory of the body functions, should be 
more or less available to every individual. 

Indeed, it is available, but to a very limited ex- 
tent. We have a capricious and unruly command 
of it. This is not astonishing when we reflect 
upon how little we remember and utilize even of 
the experiences of our individual lives. Very few 
people can recall the details of any one day twenty 
years ago. Yet there is no doubt that we should 
be a great deal wiser than we are if we could 
remember and utilize all the deeds of our days, as 
my friend in Paris remembered. If we, with our 
especial brain equipment, and our practice and 
incentive of daily living, and our memory and 
systems of different sorts can do so little with what 
has actually happened to us personally, it is not 
surprising that we do considerably less with what 
is only dimly and partially to be perceived in the 
best of circumstances. 

Nevertheless, we do manage to touch it at times. 
We touch intuition—erratically: we have inspira- 


192 CREDO 


tions,—rare, and not to be commanded. ‘These 
things are quality wisdom drawn from quality 
memory of race experience. They are recollec- 
tions, seized almost at random it seems, and yet 
with often a correspondence to need so beautiful 
that one could with difficulty avoid the thought of 
a personal and beneficent supervision. There 
may be such supervision for all I know; but I 
conceive that if such be the case the aid extended 
must be a directing of natural currents, so to speak. 
A lack in a human soul must, to the extent of its 
equipment, tend to draw to itself from its human 
quality of consciousness, as a magnet draws only its 
affinity from a heap of mixed filings, that which 
will complement it. 

Sometimes, in rare and apparently accidental 
cases, someone appears to dip into this body of 
memory in a more concrete form. We have all 
experienced the sudden shock of feeling, though 
in a strange place, that we have “been there 
before.” Usually this is merely a generalized 
impression, but occasionally it becomes definite. 
A friend of mine once happened upon an obscure 
little valley in Switzerland which carried with it 
this sense of familiarity. Before entering it he 


CREDO 193 


described for the benefit of his companions exactly 
what would be found there. A great deal was 
precisely as he described; but there were certain 
discrepancies, the most important of which was 
that in one spot where he predicted a pine forest 
lay an open farm. However, careful research 
verified all his details, including the forest, as 
existing fifty years before. My friend had never 
been abroad, and knew nothing of this particular 
valley. It was a striking, but by no means unique 
example of this type of recollection. The Society 
for Psychical Research has verified and recorded 
many of them. The feats of psychometry—the 
reading of facts from an object held in the hand— 
are in my view in the same category; that is, a more 
or less accidental contact with what exists in the 
memory of the larger consciousness of which we— 
and everything else—are a part. 

Another friend visited our household who 
possessed the latter mysterious power to a marked 
degree. Blindfolded she would take between her 
palms small objects I would select, whose history I 
alone knew, and whose very nature were concealed 
from her by their wrappings or the way they were 
folded or what not. Without moving her palms 


194. CREDO 


she would name the object, give an account of the 
high lights of its history, and even at times describe 
accurately the characteristics of persons unknown 
to her who had something to do with the object. 
This experiment was repeated again and again 
with things of all sorts from all parts of the world. 
The proved explanation must of course be as yet 
obscure; but the facts of the matter could not 
be questioned. Many hypotheses are possible. 
Telepathy might be one of them; but in that case 
it would be of a highly selective type. And in 
some experiments she was given one of many 
similar objects at random whose exact identity I 
did not myself know until after her statements. It 
seems more reasonable to me that here, as I have 
said, through some aptitude and by some process 
as yet unknown to us—including herself—she 
gained a partial command of the type of race or 
quality memory we have been discussing. 

It also seems reasonable that this may be a 
faculty in embryo, so to speak, a foreshadowing 
of a power that may with development expand 
to the point of conscious command, at least to a 
certain extent. Such command must lie far in the 


CREDO 195 


future of the race, but it appears a logical exten- 
sion in evolution. Our powers are as yet feeble, 
but in some directions definitely adumbrated. In 
the highest conceivable development we might 
even imagine an individual conscious entity able 
to touch and use at will this venerable wisdom, 
these many experiences both of successes and of 
failures, this store of memories extending back 
through the whole history not only of a race but of 
a type of consciousness. In comparison our own 
little submerged individual memory fades into 
insignificance. 


IV 


In all this we see in reality two processes: one 
the storing of experience in memory; the other the 
recollection of required details, the bringing them 
to the surface of consciousness. All the memories 
always exist, as long as the entity to which these 
things have happened continues to exist; but they 
are not all and always available. Certain sets of 
circumstances are necessary to make them avail- 
able. Sometimes these circumstances are the re- 
sult of conscious effort, as when we put our minds 


196 CREDO 


to “remembering” a thing; sometimes they are the 
result of chance, as when a stray perfume arouses — 
acutely things forgotten; sometimes they are the 
result of supernormal or abnormal conditions, as 
in the case of the hypnotized or of the medium in 
trance. But they are always brought to light 
because of the gathering of certain conditions. 
Many of them would not, in the regular course 
of events, have come to the surface at all. It 
required the unusual or unexpected or abnormal 
circumstances to arouse them. Nevertheless 
always, when they are so aroused, they are found 
to be unblurred, fresh in their pristine perfection. 
They have suffered no tarnishing, no deterioration 
in their long submerges. My Paris friend’s ab- 
normal recollection was as exact of the most 
trivial details of his early childhood as of the 
events of that very day. 

Thus it is entirely conceivable, even most 
probable, that for each memory, for every one of 
the innumerable minutie hidden in the sub- 
conscious, some one particular and appropriate set 
of circumstances must exist fitted for its evocation. 
All that is needed for its recollection is a knowl- 
edge of just what that set of circumstances may be. 


CREDO 197 


It seems to me probable that the storehouse of 
memory is not primarily dependent on the physical 
brain cells; but that the mechanism of evocation at 
the present moment is. The brain cells are a 
perishable institution; while, as we have seen, the 
memory storehouse is co-terminous with the in- 
dividual. Itis part of his substance; can never be 
lost; exists as long as he exists. It is a part of 
consciousness; and consciousness continues. 

But the power of recollection to the conscious 
mind in this physical life is intimately connected 
with the brain. Disease, or a blow on the head, 
Or a surgical operation can quite destroy this 
power. We are familiar, in fiction and in life, 
with the man who suddenly loses all memory of 
himself and takes up a new life of perhaps an 
entirely different nature from the old. It may 
last for years, and then another rap on the skull 
brings him back to his former existence. The two 
existences have absolutely no recollection, and 
hence no knowledge, one of the other. As far as 
the bystander is concerned it has been the same 
man throughout, the same continuing individual 


198 CREDO 


As far as he personally is concerned, however, his 
beginning and appreciation of himself as in the 
second phase dates from the accident. As far as 
his former self is concerned, he is obliterated. 
Then when the second blow brings him back ta 
his former state his continuity subjectively is (a) 
his life before the first accident, and (b) his life 
after the second accident. Everything between 
a and b is as though it never was. ‘That personal- 
ity is now obliterated. 

Nevertheless we know that the memories of all 
experiences in both existences do exist in his sub- 
merged mind. An appropriate set of conditions 
can, often does, evoke some of them. If the 
modification produced in the brain by the falling 
brick could be applied with skill and sufficient 
knowledge, it is quite in line that he could come 
into possession of both experiences. 

This is a very good example of interrupted 
continuity. Another we experience every day of 
our lives when we fall asleep. There is then also 
a blank that separates two distinct epochs of 
existence. It is so habituated a phenomenon that 
we take it for granted. It never seems to us that 
we might deny a continuity of personality merely 


CREDO 199 


because we have lost a portion of it. We have no 
waking recollection of what memories we may 
have stored during those hours. We have no 
knowledge of them at all, nor whether or not we 
have stored any memories. Nor, in those hours 
of rest, have we any recollection of our days. The 
one throws on the other but faint shadows of 
dreams. 

We have then a huge storehouse of latent 
memory, and a mechanism for evoking a very 
small proportion of that memory. The mechan- 
ism is, like all other mechanisms with which we 
are provided, adapted to its job. It evokes what 
we need and what we can utilize. We would be 
overwhelmed were all these things we possess, or 
even a very small percentage of them, permitted 
to beat for attention on our conscious minds. The 
bewilderment would render us impotent. We 
have available, and we use, just the kind and 
variety, and in general the quality of conscious 
memories that our particular environment re- 
quires. An entirely comatose consciousness would 
use no memories at all. A reawakening conscious- 
ness would use memories just to the extent of its 
awakening. A man recovering from a blow re- 


200 CREDO 


members first of all merely to breathe, then to 
move in fear of pain, then perhaps to thirst. As 
he comes to, as he occupies more life, he uses more 
and more, until at length he is, as we say, in full 
possession of his faculties. 


VI 


It would be an act of daring to attempt to 
define the limits of the physical brain as an 
evoking mechanism from the submerged memory. 
Yet, in spite of isolated cases that hint rather than 
prove to the contrary, I am tempted to define them 
as the limits of physical life. It is adapted to this 
earth and its conditions, and it is capable of 
functioning in that environment. ‘That is what it 
is for. True, there seem to have been instances 
when recollection has apparently extended either 
beyond this present life or beyond an individual 
personality. ‘These incidents may or may not have 
been real. Assuming their authenticity, it seems 
to me more likely that they were called up by some 
other apparatus than the brain, perhaps by some 
adumbration of a mechanism that will reach its 
perfection in some other state of consciousness. 


CREDO 201 


The brain is in structure physical, and in this 
respect would seem to have to do with physical 
things. 

And from that we are justified, I believe, in a 
generalization. The mechanism of evocation to 
the conscious mind from the submerged storehouse 
of memory is a mechanism for the construction of 
the proper circumstances for recollection of mem- 
ory. That mechanism is the one which fits the 
need of the entity in the life to which st ts called. 


Vil 


Then, if we admit individual conscious survival, 
we must sooner or later conceive that the entity will 
come into possession of some such mechanism. If 
it moves at all, it must be able to utilize some 
memory. Otherwise it is completely comatose. 
The number of memories it can use depends 
entirely on how much it moves, or is capable of 
moving. In other words, one’s command of 
memory depends entirely on the degree of expan- 
sion, on the radius of life one can occupy. 

The question of the degree of memory after 
death, then, is as to what use one can make of it. 


202 CREDO 


It may be that, as we have done here, we shall make 
a fresh start, without recollection of our former 
state. But even in that case, sooner or later, if we 
continue to grow and expand and reach out, we 
are going to be able to utilize to advantage more 
and more of the memories from our storehouse. 
There must, reasonably, come a time when we 
shall be justified, when our need demands, in the 
use of memories from a previous state of existence. 
And once that happens, instantly a sense of 
continuity is established between those two states 
of existence. 

It might be rather a feeble and partial sense at 
first, but it would increase as one increased his 
Capacity to use. Expansion of consciousness 
would make more and more widely available more 
and more of what consciousness has laid away. 
As it grew it would be able to use a greater and 
greater proportion from its storehouse, reaching 
farther and farther back in its previous existence. 
At the last it might be able to utilize at least 
portions from all states of its existence, and so 
become possessed of a complete and conscious 
continuity. 


CREDO 203 


From these considerations we see inspiringly 
that, like everything else beyond the small free 
gift of life and ready-made instincts, the sense of 
continuity as well as continuity itself is a growing 
thing and a thing that must be earned. 


CHAPTER XIV 


N the last chapter we casually mentioned 
‘the small free gift of life and ready-made 
instincts.” What may we mean by thatr 

We have become accustomed—mainly because 
of long reiteration—to consider a state of nature 
as nearly synonymous with perfection. Man 
‘falls away from a state of nature” to his own detri- 
ment. His attention is constantly called to the 
marvellous devices and processes of nature, with 
the added advice that he can do no better than to 
imitate them. Nature represents the smooth and 
beautiful working of a harmony which man’s 
blundering efforts tend to nullify. Sentimental 
philosophers have drawn for us a primitive figure 
from whose perfectness they tell us we have 
“fallen.” Theologians have emphasized that 
proposition. 

As a matter of fact, the natural order, as we see 

204 


CREDO 206 


it, is marvellously, stupendously ingenious in its 
adaptations, but it is often stupid in its methods. 
Viewed as the result of a development through the 
medium of thousands of experimental develop- 
ments it transcends any praise we could tell of it; 
viewed as a thing designed for a specific purpose, 
—as a machine is designed, ab inttto,— it is very 
faulty. 

Why should not this be soe Nature, in the case 
of any particular organism, has reached her end 
through a long evolution of experiments. A 
great many of these experiments have been dis- 
carded; others have been utilized for a while and 
have been outgrown and displaced by a better 
device; still others exist only as vestigial remains, 
which may—like the appendix—even prove trou- 
blesome. Nature works in old material—both of 
substance and of idea. She does the best she can 
with it. That best is almost incredibly ingenious. 
The deeper our studies into the “web of life,” the 
more profound our admiration of this ingenuity, 
of the relations and interrelations that result in 
attaining the desired end. 

But considered all by itself the system is often 
inept. Given merely the idea of the thing, and 


206 CREDO 


permission to make a fresh start with any mate- 
rials or processes he might please to select out of 
the whole bag of tricks, any intelligent person 
could often devise a simpler and better method of 
getting the same final result. | 

The process of producing the human being is 
a case in point. Looked at closely in detail, we 
can feel nothing but wonder at its ingenuity from 
start to finish. From the moment the male cell 
moves with fairly an intelligent energy in its 
search for the ovum; through the long and compli- 
cated period of gestation in which by ingenious 
chemical devices the cells first are differentiated 
into various functions, and then are enabled to 
select from the mother’s blood the elements appro- 
priate to each, to the moment when remarkable 
physical adaptations in the mother’s very structure 
permit birth, and equally remarkable expedients 
bridge the transition from the parasitic to the 
wholly independent creature, these involved proc- 
esses are fitted together in a mutual adaptation 
that is nothing less than amazing. Considering 
the matertal she had to work with, and considering 
the already-made conditions she had to meet, 
Nature has done a remarkable job. But taken all 


CREDO 207 


by itself we cannot say much for it. It is a poor 
piece of mechanics,—wasteful of time, wasteful of 
energy; a cause of suffering; dangerous; in short 
plain stupid. About its only real recommenda- 
tion is that it does produce the child. 

The same may be said of many other devices and 
functions of the human body; as also of many of 
the devices and functions of the universe about us. 
A typhoon or a cyclone are blunderings incidental 
to the very ingenious meteorological balance. 
Everywhere we see ends reached by marvels of 
adroit compromises and balances which in them- 
selves are our admiration and despair. The 
intelligence of their complicated interplay is stu- 
pendous. Yet considered each one by itself they 
are often both clumsy and wasteful. 

Why not? If we conceived of all cosmos as a 
system called into being at a stroke, we could 
legitimately wonder at such discrepancies and 
desperate expedients. But when we consider that 
the whole thing is a growing self-awareness of 
finite consciousness itself, a slow differentiation of 
that consciousness into its qualities, then we begin 
to see reason in it all. Nature has not only to fit 
her new things to her old things, but she must make 


208 CREDO 


her new things out of her old things; her new 
ideas grow out of her old ideas. She is not only 
evolving new expedients, but she is constantly 
engaged in suppressing old ones that are either 
unsuccessful or outgrown, but which nevertheless 
still retain an influence on the interplay. Her 
experiments in reproduction have been made in 
many different ways: simple division of cells, 
production of spores, external planting of seeds, 
and.so on in a ceaseless groping toward what will 
fulfil not only all requisites of reproduction of 
species, but also of innumerable psychic relations 
and dependencies. She is still far from ideal 
perfection, but she has even in an acknowledgedly 
clumsy method already gained permanently cer- 
tain essentials. 

In many of these organs and functions which do 
quite closely approximate efficiency we can still 
observe the remains of former experiments—or 
intermediary successes—which nature has dis- 
carded but whose traces she has not quite erased. 
Hair on the human body is not only practically 
useless but detrimental. It has no longer value as 
a clothing; it tends to harbour dirt and microbes; 
it is favourable to certain skin diseases. ‘The 


CREDO 209 


shape of our ears suggests the megaphone catching 
of sound, but is in reality of no use in that respect. 
We have still seven muscles that used to move this 
ear trumpet about—like a horse—when it was still 
of value, but which now are useless. The pulp in 
the corner of the eye is of no use whatever. It was 
an experiment which we can see fully carried 
out in the “third eyelid” of the bird. The appen- 
dix was an experiment in nutrition. In the 
earliest vegetarian mammals it was a large sac in 
which the coarse food was broken up by bacteria. 
There are 107 such vestigial remains in the human 
body alone. They exist as vestigial remains be- 
cause of the fact of evolution. When conscious- 
ness found a better idea than the appendix sac for 
breaking up food, it could not build the new idea 
into form from fresh materials, so to speak. It 
had to take the old machine and modify it in 
accordance with the new plan. ‘The pituitary 
gland is a curious example of the use of old mate- 
rial for an entirely different purpose. It was 
originally a supposed cyclops eye. 

So, as we see, it does not necessarily mean that 
the old idea was wholly abandoned. On the 
contrary it is extremely probable that in some form 


210 CREDO 


of life it was itself carried—or is being carried— 
to as near perfection as is possible. All about us 
we see that. Some individual species represent or 
embody their own idea much better than we could 
possibly represent that idea, for all our advanced 
intelligence and development. We have not yet 
succeeded in codperating as the bees codperate; 
nor in governing ourselves as well as do the ants. 
There are plenty of things we have not been able 
to do as well as they have been done in nature. 
When we find out how to construct as light yet as 
rigid a flying apparatus as is the head of a ripe 
dandelion, we will do some real air navigation. 
When we understand and acquire the sense of 
direction of migrating birds, we shall never get 
lost. All through evolution we see this perfection 
of the idea; and then the passing on to construct 
something more elaborate on the basis of the last. 
Everything is becoming. 


II 


In all this series we note several general 
principles. 

The first is that the older the form, the more 
nearly it seems to express its own idea and to fit 


CREDO 211 


with its surroundings. It has reached the end, or 
nearly the end, of its evolution. There are not 
many more improvements to make, so far as it is 
concerned. 

The second is that such nearly perfected crea- 
tures act by instinct almost entirely. Intelligence 
Or initiative has very little to do with their daily 
existence. As individuals they are born with a 
ready-made equipment for life. 

The third is that the few and simple things they 
are called upon to do are most admirably done. 
We never get over marvelling at the powers of 
intelligent action exhibited by such creatures. 
The books of Henri Fabre are full of instances,— 
the Emperor moth, the spiders, the wasps and 
cicadas and crickets of his French dooryard have 
furnished him with a library of fascinating mate- 
rial. The lower forms of life have a beautiful 
precision that the upper forms lack. 


Ill 


Why is all this so; and what does it mean? 

Sentimentalists, of course, tell us that it means 
a fall from grace, a degeneration. If, say they, 
man had continued to live a sweet and pure and 


212 CREDO 


natural life; if he had not dulled his senses and 
his mind with an artificial civilization; if he had 
taken example from the primitive and the feral, 
then he, too, would still have the power to live in 
complete harmony with nature. ‘This view was 
carried to its absurdity by the French school of 
a century ago. We have considerably receded 
from their position since, but there is still a con- 
siderable residue of the idea left in the minds of 
many of us. To Rousseau’s ‘‘noble savage” we 
vaguely refer at least a modicum of simpler saner 
living, and certainly a higher ideal of bodily 
health. The idea will not hold water, even as to 
bodily health. The savage is not healthier than 
the civilized man. He is sick quite as often, 
he ages in fewer years, he dies sooner. If he pos- 
sesses any advantages at all, they must lie on the 
side of certain relatively unimportant instinctive 
powers. 

And that is exactly what we should expect. In 
the very simplest qualities of consciousness expe- 
rience seemed to come to them through their in- 
dividual manifestations wholly by chance. Only 
after considerable evolution had taken place— 


es 


CREDO 213 


after the memory of a great many chance experi- 
ences had resulted in modification of the Idea— 
was the individual able even in the smallest way to 
make his own contribution of experiment. Up to 
that point all his actions or reactions in life had 
been absolutely determined for him by his quality 
wisdom. He had at birth a full ready-made 
equipment. But pretty far down in the scale, as 
we remember, some especially vital individual did 
manage to contribute something of its own; and 
that point we defined as the real beginning of 
the individual as a person and not merely as a 
separate thing. ‘This contribution of experiment 
was almost infinitesimal in proportion to the 
ready-made instinctive correspondences of life. 
Furthermore, it was in all probability blundering 
and awkward as compared to the smooth perfec- 
tions of its other and instinct-ordered activities. 
This thought gives us a clue. If we look 
farther, we will see that we have come upon a prin- 
ciple that will apply. As consciousness rises in 
evolution the field of the precise instinctive action 
1s narrowed, and the field of the reasoned—and 


blundering—experimental action is widened. 


214 CREDO 


IV 


In other words, any creature is permitted the op- 
portunity to experiment on his own,—and at his 
own cost, so to speak—1in proportion to his develop- 
ment. It is atoncea privilege and a responsibility. 
The first requisite is that he survive and continue 
his race. His ready-made equipment of instinct 
is largely devoted to assuring these results. If 
there is any capacity left over, as one might say, 
it may be occupied by intelligent effort. 

Now intelligent effort is the effort directed 
mainly by the knowledge and wisdom of the single 
individual, whose experience and memory are 
naturally much limited as compared to the experi- 
ence and memory of his quality of consciousness. 
It cannot, per se, have the same accuracy as pure 
instinctive action. But it can have a wider fling., 
Of course it is helped out to a certain extent by 
instinct. In the lower forms one might say that 
intelligent action is conditioned by instinct. On 
the other hand, individual intelligent action med- 
dles with, modifies instinctive action, sometimes to 
its detriment. To a degree the sentimentalist has 
been right. If we could follow pure instinct im- 


CREDO ois 


plicitly, without mussing it up by our personal 
ideas, we would undoubtedly do what we did do 
very much better. But we would do very much 
less than we do now, and we would never do any 
more. 

Thus when we rise in the scale to a contempla- 
tion of mankind we find that the instincts are re- 
duced to a bare minimum, and the privilege and 
duty of experiment—and hence of blunder— 
largely preponderate. His ready-made equip- 
ment has been cut down to just enough to permit 
of self-preservation. His instincts are not as com- 
manding; and he is constantly modifying their 
behests according to his own ideas. The outcome 
is more often than not unsuccessful; and it attains 
the invariable result of unsuccessful or fragment- 
ary experiment,—discomfort. But he has the 
privilege and responsibility of an ever larger con- 
tribution of experience to his human quality of 
consciousness. And this in turn, by due process of 
synthesis,—just as the sand wasp obtained its deli- 
cate technique,—will in time help toward a wider 
instinctive wisdom, an improved ready-made 
equipment for his own successors. This ready- 
made equipment will probably be in the line rather 


216 CREDO 


of more instinctive potentialities of intuition than 
of more merely physical instincts. 


V 


If it is permissible to extend our straight lines 
forward as well as back, we may make several in- 
teresting speculations. In all of evolution up to 
man we have found that the tendency is to a nar- 
rowing of the instinctive field and a widening of 
the field of intelligent personal equipment. ‘The 
ready-made equipment for the life history of the 
ant or the Emperor moth is pretty complete. 
Whatever comes up, they have a set of blue prints 
to fit the situation. In all conditions normally to 
be expected they get on beautifully. Abnormal 
conditions are successfully met only to a certain 
extent. Completely unusual conditions are fatal. 
The personal effort to compass them is feeble. As 
consciousness becomes more complex, the ready- 
made equipment is reduced. All the detailed 
exigencies of life are not covered by the blue 
prints, only the broader outlines. The creature 
has advanced enough so that it can be trusted to do 
a few of the minor adaptations on its own account. 
Its efforts are not only valuable in its own develop- 


CREDO 2107 


ment, but they add to the experience and memory 
of its quality of consciousness. Jt makes a larger 
and larger proportion of its own life. When we 
come to mankind we find him making almost all 
of his life. A large part of his ready-made equip- 
ment consists of his body and his bodily instincts. 
The rest of the job is mostly his. 

Is it not likely that this shifting of proportion 
will continue? If so, it seems probable that in the 
further development of consciousness he will find 
his ready-made portion—on the merely physical 
side—still more limited, and he will find his op- 
portunity for original construction still further ex- 
tended. It might even be in some manifestation 
—either future or elsewhere—the human quality 
might make its own body, so to speak! 

Or to amuse ourselves with another extension, 
quite logical, but of course purely speculative: 
We see in all the ascending consciousness of evolu- 
tion the experience and memory of one quality 
utilized in the succeeding and more elaborate 
forms. The hard-won effort of blundering indi- 
vidual experiment does eventually result in some- 
thing. ‘That something is utilized in forming the 
ready-made equipment of higher orders. In the 


218 CREDO 


sure instinct of one creature we see correlated and 
digested and synthesized the blunders and _ suc- 
cesses of those below it in the scale. Perhaps our 
own original experiments or adaptations of life, 
—as far as they are successful even to the degree of 
meeting conditions somehow,—may aid in the 
ready-made equipment of something beyond our 
ken. 


CHAPTER XV 


E have rounded the corner to find our- 
selves up against the involved and 
contentious question of free will. If 

a creature is to make a contribution which we can 
call original, it must do so by the exercise of 
choice. If there is no choice, then the contribu- 
tion is the gift of pure circumstance. And choice, 
of course, implies freedom of will to at least the 
extent necessary to make it. 

But when first we look upon the web of life with 
discriminating eyes, we are not so sure. ‘There 
are complicated dependencies. John Jones thinks 
he exercised nothing but his own sovereign judg- 
ment when he turned down Smith’s proposal. As 
a matter of fact he did so because at the moment 
his mood inclined toward the pessimistic rather 
than the optimistic side. He was so inclined be- 


cause he had been annoyed too soon after break- 
219 


220 CREDO 


fast. He was annoyed because the street car on 
which he went to his office crashed into a delivery 
wagon, and his name had been taken as a witness. 
That he was on the street car at all was due to the 
fact that it was three minutes behind its schedule 
and overtook him at a moment of indecision 
whether he should walk to his office or not. Its 
appearance tipped the decision. It was three 
minutes late because a flea stopped a dog in the 
middle of the tracks and just at the wrong moment. 
Furthermore, the delivery wagon came along ex- 
actly in time to be smashed into because the driver 
had decided to take the east side first this morning 
instead of the west side, as was his usual habit; and 
that decision also had a long train of cause. Now 
if Jones had accepted Smith’s offer he would have 
made some money and would not have been forced 
by lack of means to move from his present habita- 
tion; in which event his wife who was sick abed at 
the time would probably have been burned to 
death when the defective wiring of the house 
he had been living in got in its deadly work. 
Ever after Jones pointed to this escape as provi- 
dential. 

Each action of each moment, thus, has a com- 


CREDO 221 


plicated ancestry and equally complicated results. 
The mind becomes bewildered when it attempts 
to follow back this genealogy even a dozen steps. 
The interplay is so intricate, the web of life so 
woven together, that it becomes impossible that 
anything should happen but the thing that did hap-| 
pen. And yet at any point in the long sequence it 
appears that the shift of a hair would have changed 
the fate not only of the individual but of whole 
communities. The amazing interdependence has 
been many times expressed not only in fiction but 
in proverb. ‘The kingdom lost because of the lack 
of a horse shoe nail is one. Dusany used the 
idea strikingly in a play called Jf. The delay of 
half a minute in catching a particular train makes 
the difference whether a man ekes out a humdrum 
life as a suburbanite, or lives splendidly as an 
Oriental despot. 

It is no wonder, when one considers thoughtfully 
all this, that some minds become sufficiently be- 
wildered to take refuge in fatalism. The human 
midge is caught in the web of life, and it is useless 
for him to struggle. Every act of every moment 
is foreordained. What happens must happen. 
That he does struggle, in spite of his cynical 


222 CREDO 


knowledge of its ultimate uselessness, is itself part 
of the thing ordained! 


II 


But this attitude overlooks one consideration. 
To be sure we may acknowledge that the situation 
is prepared, and it is prepared inexorably as far 
as the person confronting it is concerned. To be 
sure, a very slight shift—which at the time may 
have been under the decision of someone—would 
in the past have produced, perhaps, an entirely 
different situation, or would have presented the 
same situation under an entirely different as- 
pect. To that extent the thing is out of a man’s 
control. 

The actual decision of the moment, however, is 
his. Furthermore, the kind of decision he will 
make he has determined for himself by the deci- 
sions he has made in the past. Jones allowed an- 
noyance to form his judgment as to Smith’s offer. 
If he had walked to the office and got his lungs full 
of fresh air, he would probably have accepted it. 
But, if, in the past, he had, by decisions, gained 
the ability to remain unaffected by surface mood, 
the train of circumstances we have detailed would 


CREDO 222 


have had no effect on this particular matter at all. 
As for his wife being burned to death, possibly 
the money he would have made through Smith 
would have encouraged him to move to a bigger 
house. 

Therein lies the escape from fatalism. The past 
has prepared the conditions with which man 1s 
confronted. His own history has prepared his 
own tendencies. But the moment is hisown. At 
that point he can, by his own effort, break with the 
past. By whatever of fresh impetus, fresh resolve, 
fresh inspiration he may receive or can command 
he has the opportunity of transcending himself. 
And through the fact of that transcendence he 
commands the future. His moment turns the cur- 
rent here and there, fixing the conditions perhaps 
for beings yet unborn, just as decisively as some 
small past inconsidered trifle has placed him in the 
suburbs or in Teheran. 

It also, of course, fixes certain conditions for 
himself in the future, with which in due time he 
will be confronted. What they may be he is not 
prophet enough even vaguely to guess. He can- 
not determine whether they may be more or less 
advantageous, more or less pleasant. All he can 


(224 CREDO 


be sure of is that they will be different. From his 
own judgment he is not justified in attempting to 
forecast very far; and even a short range prophecy 
is more likely than not to be falsified by other ill- 
considered but tremendous trifles of which he can 
know nothing. The present moment is his, and 
that is all. 

Since this is so, and cannot be otherwise, it be- 
hooves him to gain, as far as he may, an intrinsic 
standard of action—a standard that relies on it- 
self irrespective of results. It behooves him also 
to arouse in himself a live and vital desire which 
will not permit him without consideration to go in 
the direction of the obviously prepared. He must 
act primarily from the vantage ground of his own 
ethics, and only secondarily from the point of 
view of results. That is not morality: it is com- 
mon sense. Also he must cultivate aliveness; so 
that he does not necessarily follow the line events 
or moods or contributing conditions have laid out. 
That may be the best line; but again it may not. 
That, too, is common sense. When he appreciates 
these two points he has gone far to escape the pre- 
ordination bugaboo, and to take as much command 
of his destiny as his present powers will permit. 


a a a 


CREDO 225 


Ill 


This command is limited, in a way, but it is suf- 
ficient, and can be extended. It is a genuine com- 
mand. Individual free will is the authority to 
take charge of one’s own life in whatever condi- 
tions may confront it, instead of leaving that 
charge solely to the quality of consciousness. 
From the moment it is gained, in however limited 
a form, development is accelerated, for it now con- 
sists of the experience one gets in running the bit 
of cosmos under his control. It is a privilege, an 
order of knighthood. It is a recognition of that 
capacity for exuberance, for doing new things, 
which in the beginning made for new qualities in 
consciousness and fresh species on earth. 

It is also a tremendous responsibility. Possessed 
of it no creature can longer live all of his life com- 
fortably within the instinctive wisdom given it by 
its quality of consciousness. Something is ex- 
pected of it. That something varies, of course, 
according to capacity, whether among the lower 
creatures or among humans. One sees an oppor- 
tunity; another does not. The expectation is ac- 
cording to the equipment. 


226 CREDO 


But that part of it, I conceive, is a good deal 
like natural hunger. The capacity brings with it 
a desire for fulfilment of it. The desire is some- 
times—perhaps most often—smothered by inertia 
and habit; but it exists as an original accompani- 
ment. It is the urge toward growth we hear so 
much about. 


IV 


We are glib enough in our talk of free will, as 
though it were a thing that came to us ready to 
use, and perfectly rustless and untarnishable. As 
a matter of fact it is a capacity like any other. It 
requires development, it requires use. It grows 
with exercise; it atrophies from disuse. It re- 
quires as careful tending as any other delicate 
faculty in our personal engine. Clogged with 
carbon of laziness or Jaissez-faire or inertia it runs 
imperfectly or not at all. In our present state of 
development our wills are rarely free. They are 


bound and gagged, cramped, paralysed and un- 


workable. What we think is free will is more 
often a kind of headlong impetus acquired 
from the pressure of past events and directing it- 
self unmodified by any real personal direction. 


eet a 


CREDO 227 


Free will cannot work until we shake off the pre- 
dominating influence of these pressures. Free will 
cannot work until we are free. ‘The body of free 
violition is the measure of our strength. 

By and large an Intelligence of practical om- 
niscence, as far as the physical universe goes, and 
with the ability to trace out not only immediate 
but remote causes and effects, could prophesy the 
future with considerable assurance. Starting 
from this moment such an Intelligence could map 
out exactly what is going to happen. He could 
predict just what Jones or Smith would do a year 
from to-day at the hour of teninthe morning. He 
could in a more general way trace the trend of 
larger events. ‘Those things will come out pre- 
cisely as he prognosticates provided Smith or 
Jones or some individual near enough in the web 
of life to affect them does not rise to a decisive 
exercise of real free will. And that event is suffi- 
ciently rare. The average of human beings follow 
the sequence. What appears to them an orig- 
inal and unaffected decision has an ancestry of 
subtleties that make it natural and inevitable unless 
a definite spiritual effort is made to transcend it. 
Even the apparently unimportant and capricious 


228 CREDO 


trifles of decision, the idle and purposeless follow- 
ings of a mood, have their remote and tangled 
origins. We imagine we decide to turn to the 
right, but it is the current that turns us. We do 
not feel—are unaware of—the current. 

So our supposed Intelligence could acquire con- 
siderable of a reputation as a prophet by banking 
on this inertia. He could at least equal the 
Weather Bureau as Old Probability. In the 
possession of free will we have the power of choos- 
ing. And one of the choices must be as to whether 
or not we shall use that power. Indeed, that is 
the first choice of all. 


V 


Like everything else free will must be consid- 
ered as a product of evolution, beginning with 
the simple and expanding to the complex. Its 
earliest phases must be scarcely more than sugges- 
tions of, germs of, itself. Whether it, in germ, 
is co-terminous with immortality, as a germ, is be- 
side the point. That view is alluring, and may 
be true. 

But well down in the scale we find at least the 
appearance of a certain degree of free will. 


CREDO 229 


When an ant chances head on against a pebble 
he seems to have quite a free choice as to whether 
he shall go to the right or left of it, or climb 
over. ‘lo be sure it may well be that subtle reac- 
tions which we cannot trace determine the matter; 
some delicate influences may touch buttons which 
bring response from mechanics constructed by 
quality-wisdom in answer to quite other needs. 
An infinitesimal difference in temperature, an 
angle of light, an imperceptible current of air 
striking the insect’s physical organism may force 
the decision. But when, on the other hand, we 
take the trouble to remember that these creatures 
are provably able to meet fresh conditions and 
to modify themselves and their actions in accord- 
ance; when we reflect that somewhere down here 
there is occasional instance of individual original 
contribution to quality of consciousness, then we 
find it exceedingly difficult to deny such creatures 
an allotment of at least the beginnings of free will. 
They have a certain small charge of their own 
lives. 

That free will can be exercised only within a 
small circle. It is limited to a few things very 
close at hand. The circumference is uncrossable. 


230 CREDO 


Indeed, we soon find that the lower down in the 
scale we go the more contracted is this circumfer- 
ence. And, conversely, as we go up in the scale, 
we find the circle within which free will works 
constantly expanding. As life mounts in the evo- 
lution of its qualities, its creatures possess a wider 
and wider field within which they can do as they 
like. From this point of view growth may be 
defined as the enlargement of that circle. 

But whether the germ of free will and the germ 
of immortality are co-temporaneous or not, it seems 
permissible to define their full acquisition in terms 
of one another. The germ of free will may be 
said to become the thing itself when it has so far 
developed as to carry with it as an attribute the 
knowledge of good and evil between which to 
choose. Into the terms of good and evil I have 
no intention of reading a conventional moral sense. 
Good is what works in harmony; evil is what works 
against harmony. The knowledge of good and 
evil is merely a perception, very dim and waver- 
ing at best, of the difference between going in 
harmony and dour despairful struggle against the 
rush of life. When the circle within which free 
will can work has expanded to make this inclusion, 


CREDO 231 


then it has become our enduring property and the 
tool of an immortality. 

This is the real free will. It is the gift which 
at the birth of the soul the Fairy Godmother be- 
stows—as a weapon by which progress may be 
won, or as a black curse by which its very exist- 
ence may be destroyed. Heretofore the ordering 
of the climb has been in the hands of nature. 
Henceforward it must be man’s own. 

Like all the newborn, the soul must be a feeble 
thing at first. It must be fostered and cherished, 
or it might expire. But behind it, as behind all 
other creatures of consciousness, is its quality and 
all the garnered wisdom her myriad experiences 
have distilled into the instincts of the race. The 
abundance of its quality swaddles it about, guard- 
ing and warding it until it has gained the strength 
to grasp. Then in all justice she may demand that 
the soul in turn shall, by its consciously directed 
effort, gain its own abundance, in order that it 
may return to her manifold what it has received; 
in order that those souls yet unborn or feebly 
struggling in the first stirrings of life may in their 
turn have abundance from which to draw. If it 
fail, it might be destroyed. And it would be de- 


232 CREDO 


stroyed were there not others to make up its de- 
ficiencies. 

Such is the opportunity and the responsibility of 
free will. 


CHAPTER XVI 
I 


ROGRESS, among other things, is gained 
by experience and memory. The free 
will is one of the tools by which we work. 

Intelligence is another. The mind—in the case 
of human beings—is the aspect of Intelligence that 
seems the most important to us. The science of 
the mind, or psychology, in its purely scholastic 
definition, has of late years taken on increasing 
significance, and has made wonderful progress. 
As compared with twenty years ago, our knowl- 
edge of what goes on inside of our heads, and how 
it goes on, is comprehensive and illuminating. 
But for all that psychology is one of the newer 
sciences. It, like all new sciences, must first de- 
termine its terminology. It has been busy largely 
in observing things and naming things. That is 
all right, for it is necessary first of all to name 
things; but the error of considering a thing ex- 
233 


234 CREDO 


plained merely because it is named must be very 
carefully guarded against. Expressing a new 
mystery in terms of an old mystery is a consoling 
device. The old mystery is more familiar and so 
we think we know more about it. The two may 
even be made interchangeably to “explain” each 
other. There is an amusing French example of 
this. One school says, ‘What is there astonishing 
in manifestations under hypnotism? Analogous 
spontaneous occurrences are known in hysteria.” 
Which of course explains hypnotism because we 
are more familiar with hysteria. But at the same 
time another school of thought is declaring; 
‘‘Why marvel at hysterical manifestations? Sim- 
ilar manifestations can be brought about by hypno- 
sis.” 

This tendency has not yet been entirely overcome 
by psychology. It has split the mind up into many 
classifications—the conscious, and the subcon- 
scious, and the infraconscious, and the supercon- 
scious, and the co-conscious, and so on; not to 
mention the -liminals. ‘That is a correct enough 
procedure, for special purposes. But the trouble 
is that once this purely theoretical division is made 
there is an almost overmastering temptation to 


CREDO 235 


make it hard and fast. The mind is split into air 
tight compartments. Its divisions, and the sub- 
divisions of the divisions, are too much treated as 
separate and individual things. One cannot see 
the woods for the trees. 

Furthermore, having made these tight and sep- 
arate compartments, there comes into being another 
strong temptation; and that is to use one or the 
other as a dump into which to thrust what we 
otherwise cannot explain. ‘The “subconscious” is 
such a waste-basket. Anything that seems myste- 
rious to anybody, from inexcusable tantrums to 
strange psychic adventure, may be referred to the 
“Subconscious” and comfortably forgotten for the 
time being. So common has been this habit— 
especially in the more popular writings on the sub- 
ject—that the man on the street has accepted the 
word as a real explanation. ‘That is due to the 
workings of the subconscious mind” is a phrase 
that has gained in his ears an accurate scientific 
value. Of course it is really no explanation at all. 

Another, and related danger in psychological 
method is a tendency to build wide but fragmen- 
tary hypotheses on the basis of a small group of 
observed facts. The subject is so new, and the 


236 CREDO 


facts to be observed are so fascinating and sugges- 
tive, that theories spring up almost spontaneously. 
That is a commendable evidence of vitality 
and useful; provided one appreciates the situa- 
tion. But unfortunately the zeal of the explorer in 
fresh and unknown land carries him away. He is 
apt to become preoccupied with the paramount 
importance of his theory, attempting to make it 
supreme where it should be only one piece in a 
pattern; observing his new facts only in reference 
to it; exacting his ingenuity in bending these facts 
to fit. 

That is entirely natural. It is a concomitant of 
youth. When we examine historically the maturer 
sciences we find that they have gone through 
exactly the same stage. ‘There must always exist 
a period of independent researchers, each busy 
with his own especial small bit of the subject. 
That bit must be, to him, the most important thing 
in life or he would not give his life toit. Further- 
more, when he has observed enough facts, he is 
compelled by the nature of his mind to theorize 
about them. And since his vision is apt to be 
narrowed to the focus of what is under his micro- 
scope, to the exclusion of the general field, it is 


CREDO 237 


only natural that each should sense the general 
field in terms of his specialty. 

This is not an indictment of psychology or its 
methods, nor is it anything more than a general 
warning to be used in some cases. Psychological 
theory has a great imaginative appeal. Further- 
more, it is stimulating to the imagination. The 
student is likely to read into a hypothesis more than 
its author intended to put in. The man on the 
street is almost certain to seize on any fragment of 
provisional supposition and run off with it as a 
complete and workable whole. The Sunday sup- 
plements and “popular” treatises help him to that. 


I] 


It is necessary to remember always that all these 
divisions of the mind are arbitrary. They are 
made as labels of classification, identifying tags 
for dissection. ‘They are accurate in detail, but 
they purposely take little or no account of the 
universal principle of continuity, unity. They 
neglect to remind themselves—and us—that the 
mind is after all one thing. 

In order to see that in its perspective, let us drop 
the thought of the mind for a moment and go back 


238 CREDO 


to consciousness. Consciousness is the awareness 
of any entity. To become aware it must have 
an apparatus to function with; an awareness- 
mechanism. ‘That we have been over before. 

In what manner do you and I become aware? 
Obviously, first of all, by the physical sensation or 
response of our bodies. Next by our instinctive 
reactions, as most of the activities of the lower 
animals are governed. Then above that we are 
aware through the considered intellectual pro- 
cesses of our thoughts. But this does not complete 
the list. We recognize intuition as a definite 
awareness. It is akin to instinct, and by many it 
is confused with instinct; but it deals with a dif- 
ferent and higher stimulus. Above that, and still 
more vaguely, we acknowledge what has been 
called direct inspiration. The latter two are the 
“things that come to us,” without conscious inten- 
tion of our intellects,—indeed often they work 
best when the intellect is entirely in abeyance. 

These divisions are quite arbitrary, made for the 
purpose of discussion. From the point of view of 
consciousness they are all one thing—awareness. 
Nevertheless they are recognizably defined, and 
are widely enough acknowledged to be each a sub- 


CREDO 239 


ject of investigation by a different group of spe- 
cialists. ‘The first awareness-responses, those of 
the body, are studied by anatomists and physiolo- 
gists; the second by naturalists; the third by the 
classic psychologists; the last. two are just lately 
being rescued from the waste-basket of the ‘‘Sub- 
conscious” by modern psychology. They are all 
as diverse as can be. The methods by which they 
are observed and investigated are wide apart. 
Nevertheless, they are all one thing. 

How can that be? We can best approach | 
explanation through an analogy. Consider white 
light. Broken by a prism it shows us a series of 
different colours which we recognize instantly 
when we see them. We name them arbitrarily 
for the purposes of discussion—red, yellow, green, 
blue and violet. We recognize them plainly by 
sight; and also a number of their intermediates. 
Nevertheless science will inform us that from one 
end of the spectrum to the other there is an 
orderly and continuous progression without any 
divisions whatever. It is entirely a matter of 
wave length, of speed of vibration. At the red 
end they are slower and longer, at the violet end 
they are faster and shorter. Thatisall. Further- 


240 CREDO 


more, they increase and shorten in smooth arith- 
metical ratio. We should be hard put to it if we 
were required to name the precise rate at which 
blue ceases and purple begins, or to assign any 
difference in kind between the blue and the purple. 
They are the same thing, and the difference be- 
tween is in degree, not in kind. There are no 
actual boundaries between any groups of constitu- 
ents whatever, from one end to the other. The 
whole thing, taken together, undivided by the 
prism, we call one thing—white light, 

The analogy is already apparent. The mind 
portion of our consciousness, which is our aware- 
ness, may also be considered to progress in orderly 
unbroken fashion from the red of physical sensa- 
tion at one end to the ultra violet of the highest 
inspiration at the other. Again it is not a differ- 
ence of kind, but of degree. How we happen to 
be affected depends entirely on where we happen 
to be functioning. If that functioning is through 
the contacts and nerves of our physical bodies, our 
awareness response will be through sensation. If 
we are functioning through the back part of our 
brains we will be utilizing our instinctive acquisi- 
tions; if through the front part we will respond by 


CREDO 241 


thought. If we are functioning through those 
higher powers we are only dimly beginning to 
understand, our awareness-responses are through 
the “unconscious,’—or the super-conscious, or 
the higher subconscious, or whatever we please to 
name it. Then we gain intuitions, or inspirations, 
But throughout it 1s the same response in kind. 
From one end of the scale to the other we are 
simply traversing one thing—what we ‘might call 
the white light of consciousness. In all proba- 
bility as finite beings we can never see it as white 
light. It must, to us, always be refracted through 
physical manifestations of one sort or another. 
Without such a manifestation we would go back 
beyond the markers to the .Inunderstandable, the 
cosmic white light which has been variously 
named,—God, the Spirit, All-consciousness. 


III 


Evolution from this angle is a progression along 
this rainbow path. Some creations live in pure 
physical sensation; others have physical sensation 
plus instinct; still others have attained to thought. 
Whether there are any created beings anywhere 
who can centre their beings in what are still to us 


242 CREDO 


intuitive or inspirational perceptions, I do not 
know. The creature is centred, focussed so to 
speak, on that point of selection where its state of 
development enables it to dwell to the best advan- 
tage. It is the restricting point, the place where, 
from the millions of stimuli constantly offering, 
the few that can be used are appropriated and the 
rest screened off. Like any focussing point things 
there are clear but limited: things outside are more 
or less blurred. 

Such a focussing point is extremely necessary. 
We are already very complex creatures. Things 
by the myriad beat upon us. Were it not for the 
guardian at the portal we should live in a bewilder- 
ment. Our physical senses are daily receiving and 
dutifully reporting instantly and completely liter- 
ally millions of impressions to our centre of 
consciousness. 

Dr. Jackson, in a book called Outwitting Our 
Nerves, expresses this vividly: 


“Only by a certain degree of irritability can it sur- 
vive in the struggle for existence. ‘The five senses are 
simply different phases of the apparatus for receiving 
communications from the outside world. Other parts 
of the machinery catch the manifold messages pour- 


CREDO 243 


ing into the brain from within our bodies themselves. 
These communications cannot be stopped, nor can we 
prevent their impress on the cells of the brain or the 
spinal cord, but we do have a good deal to say as to 
which ones shall be brought into the focus of attention 
and receive enough notice to become real, conscious 
sensations. If a human being had to give conscious 
attention to every stimulus from the outer world and 
from his own body, to every signal which flashes itself 
along his sensory nerves to his brain, he would need a 
different kind of mind from his present efficient but 
limited apparatus. . . . The stream of consciousness 
never stops, not even in sleep. .. . 

“During any five minutes of a walk down a city 

street a man has hundreds of visual images flashed 
upon the retina of the eye. His eye sees every little 
line in the faces of the passers-by, every detail of their 
clothing, the decorations on the buildings, the street 
signs overhead, the articles in the shop windows, the 
paving of the sidewalks, the curbing and the tracks 
which he crosses, and scores of other objects to most 
of which the man himself is oblivious. His ear hears 
every sound within hearing distance,—the honk of 
every horn, the clang of every bell, the voices of people 
and the shuffle of feet. Some part of his mind feels 
the press of his foot on the pavement, the rubbing of 
his heel on his stocking, the touch of his clothing all 


244 CREDO 


over his body, and all of those so-called kinesthetic 
sensations,—sensations of motion and balance which 
keep him in equilibrium and on the move, to say 
nothing of the never-ending stream of messages from 
every cell of every muscle and tissue of his body. 

‘“The subconscious mind knows and needs to know, 
what is happening in the farthermost cell of the body. 
It needs to know at any moment where the knees are, 
and the feet; otherwise the individual would fall in 
a heap whenever he forgot to watch his step. It 
needs to know just how much light is entering the eye, 
and how much blood is in the stomach . . . Its mes- 
sages never cease.”’ 


This is on the physical side only. In addition 
are what must be an equal or greater volume of 
psychic impressions beating upon the individual. 
If we were to be intellectually aware of them all, 
we would be helpless. But just as we are saved 
from confusing intellectual awareness of our 
bodily perception by the fact that our particular 
mechanism is focussed more or less accurately to 
our particular need, so we cannot doubt that 
the same thing obtains as to other awareness- 
mechanisms than those of our senses; that we are 
focussed on our need from all the unguessed 


CREDO 24.5 


influences of cosmos, millions of impressions that 
impact upon our instinctive and intuitional and 
Inspirational faculties. Were all these to obtain 
equal recognition our powers of assimilation would 
be overpassed. The focussing is the selecting 
device. | 

We might then define, very broadly, the intel- 
lect of any creature as its points of focus on the 
spectrum. We are here considering intellect not 
necessarily as a reasoning faculty, capable of 
creative thought; but as that centre from which 
the creature’s present activities are directed. If 
that seems unduly to expand the word intellect, 
some other word may be substituted. 

Now it is very evident that, considering the 
spectrum of consciousness as a whole, and not 
merely as an individual possession, this focussing 
point may rest at different places for different 
creatures, or at different places for the same 
creature at different times. What is above the 
focussing point to A must appear to him as 
intuitive or inspirational, and somewhat vague. 
Out of focus, in other words. But B, more highly 
developed, might focus farther along. In that 
case B’s point of intellect—the centre from which 


246 CREDO 


he makes his selections—would be in what to A 
is still the intuitive region. And further, as either 
goes on to development, each tends to enter into 
what has been heretofore his superconscious and to 
appropriate more and more of its powers and 
responses in his actively selecting mechanism. 

In the imperfectly examined but stupendous 
possibilities of the “‘subconscious” that psychology 
is just beginning to show us, we may vaguely fore- 
shadow powers that may one day be included 
within the focussing point of our conscious 
control. And herein we see the horizon of 
infinite development. 


CHAPTER XVII 


OWEVER that may be for the future, 
the fact is that at present we are each 
I individually concerned with his own 
progress. ‘his takes place through experience 
and memory. But among all the things that 
happen to us there are certain vital experiences 
that make the most for progress, and which we 
remember. They become more intimately part 
of our individual content. These are the ones in 
which we have used our volition, made our choice, 
exercised our free will. Every such experience is 
through this mechanism drawn from that part of 
the cosmos which comprises the Not-done, and 





1Some might question this, asking; how about the passive by- 
stander or subject of an experience? ‘Though having nothing active 
to do with the experience, he would remember it. 

But has not the free will had its share in such cases? ‘The 
personal interpretation is often a direct act of free will. And that 
personal interpretation would be utterly impossible were it not for a 
long series of other experiences in the past by which the bias and 

247 


248 CREDO 

transferred to that part of the cosmos which 
comprises the Thing-done. It has been accom- 
plished because we personally were aware of it, 
and made a choice. Therefore, it must have 
become part of our individual memory, and cannot 
be lost. It is our possession. For some reason 
or another we may not be able at will to place our 
hands on any particular one of these possessions; 
nevertheless they are there, and can, by a proper 
assembly of conditions, be brought intact to the 
conscious mind. 

Experience without the assistance of free will 
brings development, as we have seen. But what 
we have also seen, without having noticed it, is 
that an act in which free will is involved brings a 
double experience. ‘That is so because a choice is 


character and equipment—in short, the receptivity—of the spectator 
was established. And these were the result of free will. We must 
never lose sight of the fact that no act, mental or spiritual or 
physical, can stand alone. It is the descendant in direct lineage 
of a long and unbroken series. For observe, two such “passive 
spectators” of the same thing will get from it two entirely different 
reactions, two totally distinct influences, two widely divergent ex- 
periences,—and hence memories. This was not because at the 
moment of this particular happening they differently applied the free 
will; but because in innumerable instances in the past, in a 
myriad of different but contributing experiences, each has differently 
used his power. 


CREDO 249 


involved. The person must know two things 
before choice is possible; whereas a creature that 
merely reacts needs know only the stimulus that 
causes the reaction. The former knows what it 
has chosen to do, of course; but it also knows what 
it has chosen not to do. When one picks up a 
grain of sand, he does not take all the other grains 
of sand. ‘Thus the exercise of free will, through 
the fact that it doubles experience, is imperative 
for the fullest and the fastest development. If 
One would construct for himself a course of 
conduct, he must keep this point to the forefront. 

We must here remind ourselves that exercise of 
the real free will is not so frequent as it seems to 
be. Of course the word “will” is not intended 
here to borrow anything from the strenuous up- 
wards and onwards who clamour for the develop- 
ment of “will power,” meaning merely a tense and 
generally futile concentration, as far as real 
results go. 

This also should be noted: that with the first 
exercise of the free will a creature comes into some 
sort of intended relation with the whole of cosmos. 
As we have just pointed out, he knows the thing he 
has chosen; and in a more or less vague way all 


250 CREDO 


the things he has not chosen. He has differen- 
tiated them, consciously; and he has taken an 
attitude toward each group. For the first time he 
has come out of limited automatic contact, and into 
at least potential cosmic contact. His relation 
with the not-chosen component is very nebulous, of 
course. It is, like all other beginnings, a germ. 
But he has ceased to be a mere thing, and has 
become a citizen of the world. 

And in so doing for the first time he is occupied, 
as far as he is concerned, primarily in building up 
himself, and only secondarily in building up the 
quality of consciousness from which he has sprung. 


I] 


Here begins, then, still another responsibility; 
that as respects himself. Just to the extent that 
his fate is in his own hands, and to no further 
extent, is he responsible for his own individuality. 
He is not merely subjected to development; he has 
an obligation of development. He must give his 
mind to the job. You remember the essence of 
that job;—“‘to practise, with all the equipment he 
possesses, in being Me.” 

To do this he must possess, or build, or evolve 


CREDO 251 


slowly some system of conduct. This system of 
conduct we call ethics. It has many branches. 
In its deeper aspects it is not a set of rules, but a 
spiritual hygiene. 


Ill 


That term has a thousand facets. On one side 
it Comprises at once a development of powers, an 
exercise of powers, and a command of powers. 
As far as our command of the particular faculty 
we have lately been discussing is concerned—mem- 
ory—that, as we know in our own cases, is 
capable of cultivation and extension. The sim- 
plest of the advertised memory systems can do 
wonders. One can be practised to remember at 
sight Jack Robinson and where one met him ten 
years ago and that he had trouble with his wife 
and his teeth. Also telephone numbers by the 
gross, and dates in history, and statistics of the 
cotton crop in 1894, and to do all one’s errands 
without the aid of a note book, and many other 
curious and more or less useful or useless things. 
One can also be taught how to cultivate the 
ability to recollect, to find and open dockets of the 
past that otherwise would have been filed away in 


252 CREDO 


dusty desuetude. Many of these locked cabinets 
may be entered by one means or another—by 
progressive training, by the “free association” of 
the psychoanalysts, by hypnotism—and their con. 
tents brought to conscious attention. It is by no 
means a wild dream to prognosticate that in some 
remote time man will obtain access to and com- 
mand of all this material he so industriously 
accumulates, and buries, and preserves. We are 
already, feebly, learning methods by which a small 
percentage of such a result may be brought about. 

But beyond this, there seems to be no logical 
reason why man’s command over the other type of 
memory—that peculiar not merely to himself, but 
to the whole quality of consciousness—may not also 
be extended. The body of it is there; and the 
connection is by the nature of things established, 
albeit vaguely. Intuition, inspiration, lucidity are 
as yet uncertain, freakish, out of control. In- 
stances such as that of my friend in Switzerland 
may be fairly classed—as far as we can see—as 
accidental. Nevertheless the beginnings of some 
little control have been made. We have as yet 
no clear vision of how these beginnings are cor- 
related; indeed in most cases they seem to have 


CREDO 263 


little connection one with the other. Hypnotism 

is one little hand-hold: likewise certain aspects of 

certain kinds of trance; there are a few artists in 

one medium or another, who certainly work from 

inspiration, who can to an extent command that 

inspiration. Andsoon. It appears to be reason-— 
able that this simple germ too will grow. 

At the present time we can have little to say as 
to means and methods. It does seem, however, 
that command of the quality memory must depend 
on the degree to which one’s contact-possibilities 
are developed toward race consciousness rather 
than merely personal consciousness. The wider 
one’s human sympathies, the more power does one 
attain. ‘That statement has long been a common- 
place of figurative speech. Here it is taken from 
the figurative and placed solidly in the practical. 

Perhaps this can be better illustrated by the 
graph on page 254. 

A, B and C are individuals, and these letters also 
represent the beginnings of individual experiences 
for each. At point a the body of experience or 
memory of A and B overlap and become common 
to both; though A and C are still separate and 
apart. At point 5 the experiences of B and € 


cod 


254 CREDO 


A B c 
coincide. At point c, however, if the expansion 


continues, the areas of all three overlap, and so 
there exists some thing common to all. Instead of 
A, B and C substitute the individuals of the race. 
It is evident that,—provided expansion takes place 
—it does not matter how far apart are the incep- 
tions; there must come a time—if evolution 
continues—when experience and memory must 
overlap. Carried far enough, it would theoreti- 
cally become racial. 

This is an illustration merely. The point is that 
with increasing development each individual must 
possess in his own consciousness—though perhaps 
as yet deeply hidden and inaccessible to his voli- 
tion—not only the personal experiences and mem- 
ories on which he has exercised his own free will, 
but also many others. These, to repeat, are 
accessible to him only in a limited way. They 


CREDO 255 


come to his conscious attention only rarely, and 
apparently by accident. But he must possess a 
portion of the experience and memory of, at first 
smaller, and later larger groups. In perfection 
he would possess that of his whole quality of 
consciousness. By development and expansion 
they become part of his possessions as much as 
though his own free will had manufactured them. 
He should have to them the same access as to those 
he might naturally consider his own. In the 
expansion toward wider inclusion, and in the 
discovery and perfection of the technique of 
handling his possessions, lie one of man’s greatest 
possibilities of growth. 


Ty 


This is of course a far cast into what must be a 
remote future. It has value to us now as furnish- 
ing one building stone for the structure of our 
spiritual hygiene, when we come to its construc- 
tion. In our present state of enlightenment this 
sort of acquisition must take place, if at all, in the 
farther region of the mind over which man’s con- 
trol is little or nil. But in order intelligently to 
move, we must establish direction. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


UTSIDE our conditions of space and 
time, We must again and again remind 
ourselves, is an Absolute which we can- 

not understand. ‘We may come into relation with 
it, and we may attempt to analyse that relationship 
from our own point of view; we may find it to be, 
in some manner personal to ourselves, in touch 
with our individual aspirations and in response to 
our individual needs. ‘That is a matter that each 
must determine for himself. The relations one 
finds to be true in his own case may well be one of 
intimacy, of close knit correspondence—the lov- 
ing God. This is all understandable and possible. 
For the one thing we can predicate concerning so 
ungraspable a thing as the infinite is that all things 
are possible to it. Otherwise it would not be the 
infinite. 

But we must with all this keep clearly before 


our minds that the infinite cosmos is inunderstand- 
250 


CREDO 257 


able by anything but itself. In our approach to- 
ward it we must be satisfied with momentary, half- 
guessed glimpses, as we see mountain tops through 
shifting clouds. And we must remember that in 
discussion of higher truth no man can be told 
anything that he does not already know. The 
idea, the form-of-words, must find within him a 
thing that has grown through his own spiritual 
development of perception. This he must already 
be possessed of inside, in order that the idea 
expressed from the outside may find its correspond- 
ence. Otherwise, any statement is a mere collec- 
tion of words, with perhaps a beguiling surface 
meaning. 

Indeed this is a profound truth that applies to 
all interchange. In the realm of abstract truth 
man can tell another man nothing that he does not 
already know. The latter may not know that he 
knows it, but he must have grown to its essence 
before he can understand more than the surface 
significance of what the other is talking about. 
One can start another in the direction of acquisi- 
tion; one can bring to the surface what has 
remained submerged, formulate what has been 
obscure; that is all. 


268 CREDO 


It is also a twin-sister truth, or perhaps merely 
another way of saying the same truth,—that we 
are capable of understanding only that to whose 
dimensions we have grown. It is possible to feel 
intuitively, momentarily, something beyond that, 
of course; but when we attempt to give it a shape 
and form, that shape and form will be moulded 
to the dimensions of our greatest capacity as 
determined by the growth we have made. That 
is why any attempt at concrete expression of God 
by man is in man’s own image. The expression 
may, in the case of the modern philosopher, no 
longer be anthropomorphic; ’* but it is nevertheless 
an expression in terms of his own highest pos- 
sibilities as he can conceive them. That is all that 
a sincere effort at concrete expression of God, in 
any state of civilization, can be—an embodiment 
of the highest conception of himself possible to 
man in that state of civilization. 

This is on the side of intellect, of formulation, 
of an attempt to get a definite conception of some- 
thing before which to bow. On the side of feeling, 
of spiritual contact, communion, mysticism—what- © 
ever one pleases to call it—wherein is no attempt 





1JIn the immediate literal sense—God in man’s physical image. 


CREDO 259 


at intellectual conception, the relation may be as 
close, as intimate, as beautiful as each one’s 
capacity permits. 

Nevertheless there are a few intellectual ideas, 
of the greatest simplicity, which we can permit 
ourselves. This Consciousness is. There are very 
few wholly mechanistic philosophers or scien- 
tists who feel they have reached any finality of 
view. Those who avow such a belief, do so 
tentatively. “We do not see—as yet—how it can 
be otherwise,” is the gist of their statement of posi- 
tion. The whole trend and effort of such men’s 
investigations show them to be still on their 
journey, still focussed, still blindered for a pur- 
pose, still on the arc of the incomplete circle. 
They are immersed in detail, following short trails. 
Their generalizations are as yet only generaliza- 
tions into what are really larger details. For it is 
an interesting and significant fact that the greater 
scientists who have lived out the essential comple- 
tion of their investigations and theories have 
returned at last, and have in most cases testified to, 
h conviction of the animating absolute Conscious- 
ness. These men have in most cases stepped aside 
in order to make a formal statement to the end 


260 CREDO 


that it should be clearly understood that over and 
above and beyond the intricate detail of method 
with which their scientific lives had been con- 
cerned, they have entertained a profound faith. 
Darwin, Newton, Spencer, Huxley, Lodge,—the 
list could be far extended,—have taken the pains to 
make a plain affirmation of this faith. Even La 
Place, whose life work apparently was the con- 
vetting of the visible universe to a self-acting 
mechanism, considered it necessary to make such 
a statement. No one could deny the thoroughness 
of these men’s scientific insight; nor the rigidity of 
their scientific method. But each had, as far as 
himself was concerned, and in the essentials, 
completed his allotted task; each had successfully 
traversed the thicket of facts; each was permitted 
to look back for a survey of the whole. Only 
those still threading the tangled paths have been 
unable to see the wood for the trees, to realize 
that there must be something beyond the mechan- 
ism, perfect though that mechanism may be. 

To most of us who are at all open to influences 
outside ourselves the conviction that this Con- 
sciousness is comes to us almost in spite of our- 
selves. We must be aware at least of some vast 


CREDO 261 


and beautiful life-giving force that continually 
expresses itself all around us. We see it every- 
where: the busy clouds, the drawing power of the 
sun, the new shoots in our garden; everywhere the 
urge and developing growing power of life. 
Thousands of us have spent our thousands of 
years in research and observation, and we have 
not yet been able even to catalogue a thousandth 
part of the things that surround us. We have not 
succeeded in understanding more than a little of 
their beautiful interplays and interrelations and in- 
terdependencies. Everywhere we turn our intel- 
ligence we see, by its own test, that things are in- 
telligently arranged. And we must, if we are at 
all sensitive or imaginative, see that we ourselves 
are part of that system; that we too are animated 
by that same urging and life giving force; that 
we float in it so to speak, and are part of it as it 
is part of us, and that from it we draw at least 
our power of existence. 

That much we can know. And we know that 
this universal life giving force answers need when 
approached in harmony with itself. Some peo- 
ple see further in this direction than do others. 
But in the very simplest aspect of this we say that 


262 CREDO 


we “work with nature.” We cannot by our own 
strength lift the sawlog and move it to the water; 
but we can call to our aid the forces of gravity 
and it slips tothe sea. We have felt and expressed 
a need, and there is in the mechanism of the uni- 
verse a definite answer to that need. But the an- 
swer is available only when we invoke it by an act 
of volition. We cannot sit supine and expect our 
sawlog to be transported for us. ‘That is not the 
way of nature. 

This is on the purely mechanical and material 
side. Nevertheless the response to need is here no 
different in kind than that which meets the mys- 
tic’s outreaching. Nor is it different from the re- 
sponse that meets the need when an emergency taps 
in us an unsuspected clarity of vision, readiness of 
expedient, resourcefulness, and strength beyond 
our normal powers. It is all a part of the univer- 
sal life in which, to repeat, we float and from 
which we draw our power of existence. The com- 
plement to ourselves exists, and requires only the 
proper evocation. Our education consists pre- 
cisely in the method of this proper evocation: it 
will always so consist, in higher and higher 
medium of expression. 


CREDO 263 


If 


Only vaguely or here and there have men re- 
alized fully in this field what has long been known 
to obtain in others:—that the obscure methods of 
the higher branches may to advantage be studied 
in the more simple and perhaps crude methods of 
the lower. If we would construct for ourselves a 
spiritual hygiene we can perhaps get more than 
a hint in the ordinarily physical things we do 
every day. And then try them out to see if they 
will work. As Dooley says, ‘Av it worruks it’s 
true.” 

It is not the purpose at present to attempt the 
construction of even a simple spiritual hygiene. 
Perhaps in some future work I may make the at- 
tempt. But an example of what we are here dis- 
cussing may be found in a study of the technique 
of any accurate game—golf, pistol shooting, ten- 
nis, archery. The first thing that the beginner | 
discovers, and the last thing he acquires practi- 
cally, is that physical tension is fatal to good results. 
One must be free-moving, relaxed. Concentra- 
tion in the sense of tightness and a convoluted self- 
contained effort defeats its own aim, It does so 


264 CREDO 


for the simple reason that he throws himself en- 
tirely on his own self-contained resources. He is 
working by personal intellectual effort, outside the 
rhythm of nature. The result is awkwardness. 
All he learns is the ease with which his strength is 
overpassed. And as we ascend in the scale we 
will find that the same consideration obtains: that 
receptivity, porosity, permeability—whatever one 
pleases to call it,—gives access to that unknown 
reservoir that manifests itself in body or mind or 
spirit as more than normal endurance or re- 
sourcefulness or inspiration; while tension, self- 
centredness, hard compactness of soul results at 
best in awkwardness and at worst in retrogression. 
That knowledge is coming to us slowly, and piece- 
meal, and in many different ways. We are gain- 
ing control of the powers we know; and we are be- 
coming increasingly aware of powers yet to come. 


II] 


This intimate relationship between ourselves, as 
consciousness, and the Consciousness of which we 
—and all other things,—are manifestations, must 
exist not merely in one but in every aspect of our 
beings. The thing is homogeneous. There is no 


CREDO 266 


reason why it should be otherwise. In Conscious- 
ness as a whole is the complement to every need of 
any of its parts, could that complement be evoked. 

Furthermore, Consciousness as a whole must be 
self-aware to an extent of which our own self- 
awareness is but a feeble and flickering shadow. 
It must be so. We cannot attempt to fathom its 
infinite aspects; but in the finite it possesses 
as awareness-mechanisms all created things. 
Through their evolution and development it has 
perfected its qualities. Through their physical 
manifestations as sense organs—so to speak—it has 
the experience and memory of a universe. 

It cannot be too often repeated that it is impos- 
sible for us to understand either the purpose, the 
nature, or the function of the Absolute. But we 
are entirely privileged to examine it in any of 
its finite aspects. We are conditioned in our 
thoughts and activities by space and time; and in 
so far as the Absolute also conditions itself in 
space and time it is within our ken. With that 
limitation, as we are constituted we are potentially 
capable of understanding. Nothing within our 
limit markers is finally unknowable. We are 
justified in pushing our inquiries out and out, as 


266 CREDO 


far as our vision extends, confident that nothing 
within our view is intrinsically inunderstandable, 
however mysterious or “holy” it may for the mo- 
ment appear. And slowly but steadily we are ex- 
tending our comprehension out into the ‘“unknow- 
able.” ‘To the savage the movements of the stars, 
the reactions of the bodily functions, the source 
of the thunderbolt are alike “unknowable.” Often 
they were held sacred. As finite creatures we are 
heirs to all of the finite. And whatever aspect the 
Absolute therein presents is a legitimate field of 
investigation. 

The ultimate purpose is beyond us, because it 
is infinite. Why the Absolute conditions itself in 
space and time is and must remain obscure. But 
so conditioned its purpose seems to be plain. It 
is that of each and every one of its creatures :— 
the expansion of self-consciousness by increasing 


awareness. 


IV 


As we have several times speculated, from as 
many different angles, this increasing awareness 
seems to be gained through the awareness- 
mechanisms of its own manifestations and embodi- 


CREDO 267 


ments. We now begin to see in what manner it 
is in relation to those embodiments, and why the 
meed of healing wisdom or urge or complement 
answers need. 

An illustrative picture may be constructed from 
the analogy of the human body. The governing 
centre of the human being has care of the health 
of its body. By governing centre I do not mean 
the conscious intellect so much as that aspect of 
the ego which carries on the mechanical processes 
—digestion, circulation, the beating of the heart, 
the intaking of the breath, the reflexes of the 
nerves, the dispatch of hormones—in short all the 
intricate body politic of the physical functions. 
This is a definite and very complex intelligence, 
working with a marvellous executive capacity. 
If something happens, if an injury is inflicted, or 
a disintegration of tissue takes place, this intel- 
ligence takes cognizance and at once sets about the 
proper measures for relief. It hurries up its 
armies of combat, its agents of reconstruction. 
The invaded territory entertains for the emergency 
a whole military population of quite different 
character from its usual inhabitants. If the cam- 
paign is successful, the combat troops are with- 


268 CREDO 


drawn; after the scavengers have thrown out the 
debris, they too retire; and the field is restored to 
the peaceful occasions of its normal population. 

This executive intelligence is in the main below 
our threshold. However, it has in some cases 
been slightly raised to a more or less conscious but 
always partial control. Our various excursions 
into auto-suggestion, mental healing, Coué-ism, 
miracle cures and the like have given us at least 
a hint of the extent of this executive supervision. 
For a long time we have emphasized the idea that 
healthy cells made a healthy person. We are be- 
ginning to see that in fact the thing is reciprocal; 
that the person himself can contribute toward the 
healthy cells. The central consciousness sends aid 
when it is needed. 

But we note this: that these reparatory forces 
are marshalled and sent by the central conscious- 
ness to an affected part only when the central 
consciousness is informed of the trouble. ‘The 
mind? instructs the hand to pull away from the 
candle flame because the finger has reported, 
through pain, that its tissue is being destroyed, and 
clamours for the assistance of a command to the 





1 Perhaps only the instinctive aspect of the mind. 


CREDO 269 


muscles of the arm. If we should numb the 
nerves, or sever them, the finger would char un- 
known. That is a simple illustration, on the side 
of usually voluntary action, but it is typical. In 
order to extend its help, in order to complement 
the need, the central being must be apprised 
through an appropriate mechanism. 

In an analogous manner we can conceive con- 
sciousness flooding toward the need of any of its 
creatures the influences most healing of dishar- 
mony of any kind. Ina not dissimilar fashion we 
might conceive of the necessity for its being ap- 
prised of that need, at least in the case of those 
creatures to whom we might ascribe an enduring 
individuality. And when it is not so apprised— 
when that particular mechanism which is the 
nerve-system of the complicated awareness crea- 
ture not touched—the soul may char unknown. | 

The mechanism of apprisal has been variously 
defined in different ages and by different schools 
of thought. Many of the definitions have been 
outworn, or have gathered to themselves super- 
fluous and undesirable connotations. Some have 
become obsolete ; some are almost ready for the dis- 
card; some are even now in the process of formu- 


270 CREDO 


lation. It has been called prayer; but that word 
has become almost too tainted with theological 
formalism, and its intellectual aspect has over- 
shadowed its essence of subjectivity. It might be 
called spiritual openness, relaxation, communion, 
porosity, permeability, spiritual contact. What- 
ever the term, itself must be understood and used 
as the cornerstone of any spiritual hygiene. And 
in the case of those creatures endowed with free 
will, it must be sought. One “works with nature” 
by choice. It is another of the functions and 
privileges and responsibilities of free will. The 
simpler creatures obtain what they need auto- 
matically. The current of consciousness flows 
through them unimpeded, and they take from it 
their requirements as the variegated cells of the 
body take from the passing blood stream their own 
especial constituents. But here the power passes 
more into individual control. It is as though one 
possessed a switch by which he turned the current 
of his need into contact with the greater conscious- 
ness of which he is part, or by which he cut him- 
self off. 

Needless to say this conception must not be 
narrowed to the sort of personal attention the 


CREDO 271 


ancient Jews thought they obtained from their 
diminishment of God,—Jehovah. It is a turning 
of health-giving currents of all that is required of 
all that Consciousness contains towards a needing 
part. If the being is open and receptive, it flows 
within him and accomplishes. If he is tight in 
his tension of impermeability, it washes by him 
and but a little trickle enters in. 

But beware again of an attempt at full under- 
standing of Consciousness. You will merely be 
constructing a gigantic man to fill all space. 


CHAPTER XIX 


E have repeated a number of times and 

in a number of different ways the 

thought that in essential the universe 
represents the finite aspect of the universal life 
or force or vitality or consciousness seeking 
through development to become self-aware. We 
have also been made familiar with the method of 
this becoming. It is in process exactly the same 
method by which any entity becomes self-aware; 
—by knowing something outside its centre. 

This presupposes a duality, but it is a finite 
duality in infinite unity. It exists only within 
the limit markers we have set for ourselves; but 
it exists throughout all the space included be- 
tween them. In the very first juxtaposition of 
the two specks of consciousness, of the electron 
and proton, we find that out of the same thing two 


things have come: a force and something repre- 
272 


CREDO 273 


senting that force. Whatever its infinite aspect, 
within the finite the All-Consciousness realizes its 
I AM, just as do any of its specialized manifesta- 
tions; by awareness of itself. ‘This awareness,— 
again like that of its creatures—comes through 
response contacts. “These response contacts make 
experience and memory: their increasing num- 
bers and complexity, as evolution proceeds, make 
for that growth toward perfect self-awareness 
which—as far as we can see—appears to be the 
ultimate purpose within the finite. 

Now we have further noted the evident fact 
that in order to get awareness-contacts, it is nec- 
essary to possess awareness-mechanisms. That, 
also, is true of everything. On the physical side, 
the gills of the fish and the lungs of the air- 
breathing creatures are at once mechanisms of life 
and of response to individual necessity and en- 
vironment. The various faculties of body, mind 
and spirit are all awareness-mechanisms. 

The awareness-mechanisms of Consciousness 
within the finite are its created beings. Each 
represents to a greater or lesser degree of perfec- 
tion according to its development some quality or 
idea of consciousness; it makes consciousness self- 


274. CREDO 


aware as to its own particular self. The different 
ideas, or qualities, are worked out little by little 
through their repeated embodiment, and by means 
of the increasing self-awareness such embodiment 
makes possible. 

All this is old ground. It is repeated here in 
condensed form in order that we may again have 
the principle clearly in mind. 

But what we have not particularly considered 
before is that though all created things are separate 
one from the other, and are quite distinct entities, 
nevertheless they are all informed by, animated by 
the one thing. Traced back in pedigree, through 
whatever intricate device, they become at last 
components of Consciousness as a whole. They 
are as distinct and as individual as the different 
corpuscles of the blood; but they are as much a 
part of the universal life as the corpuscles are part 
of our own vitality. Looked upon as physical 
bodies they are mere filters of life. It flows 
through them; they are immersed in it, sus- 
pended in it. It is lke a surrounding atmos- 
phere, all embracing, all inclusive, containing 
in itself all elements of all things. Each entity 
can take of these elements what its need requires 


CREDO 27,5 


and what its equipment permits. Al! that is 
necessary is that it remain permeable. To main- 
tain permeability is, again, a portion of the spirit- 
ual hygiene. There is, in this conception, no 
merging of individualities. They are distinct be- 
cause each 1s an organ of awareness. Each is as 
much an organ of self-awareness as is the eye or 
the ear to the human being; and as specialized. 
We would never confuse our ears and our eyes. 
Each has its own function. Each is aiding, in its 
own way, through its own bit of self-awareness, the 
Consciousness in the finite to become self-aware. 

This is all abstractly metaphysical. It begins 
to strike home when we narrow the field and look 
upon ourselves. We, too, are awareness-mechan- 
isms of the finite Consciousness. 

From our own point of view, at least, we are an 
exceedingly delicate and responsive instrument, of 
constantly increasing efficiency. We are able to 
become aware of ourselves in a great many ways. 
Compared with the simple physical correspond- 
ences of the fish our bodies, with their beautiful 
balanced sensitivenesses, are of much higher value. 
We can see colour in shade and arrangement, and 
form, and delicacy beyond the capacity of any 


276 CREDO 


other animal. Wecan see more things, and larger 
things, and smaller things in a greater variety of 
relations. ‘There are some specialists—like eagles 
and buzzards—that can beat us in certain small 
departments of the game, but we can beat them 
in so many others that our superiority can hardly 
be questioned. No eagle could make anything out 
of a painting nor match a ribbon. Training of 
intellect? Certainly: but through the eyes. We 
are visually more aware. Similarly we can hear 
more, and taste more, and even smell more, in the 
sense of becoming more deeply aware of things, 
than other organisms. On the intellectual, the cor- 
relating, side we are, of course, miles beyond. 
The most complicated intellectual synthesis pos- 
sible to an animal is easy for the most undeveloped 
savage. All this is awareness. As organs of 
awareness we may flatter ourselves that we are 
fairly sensitive and responsive. In the universe 
as we know it we represent some senses that are 
apparently not duplicated elsewhere. Through 
us the finite Consciousness becomes aware in di- 
rections it could not be aware had we not been 
developed. Just as a man cannot see if deprived 
of his eyes. 


CREDO 277 


Each of the bodily sense organs has its specialty 
to which it attends, and which cannot be taken 
care of by any other organ. ‘The eye is responsible 
for the responses possible to light vibrations; the 
ear to those of sound; touch to pressure contacts, 
and soon. Ina similar manner we, as awareness 
organs, may be conceived to have our specialties, 
so to speak. Consciousness through us becomes 
aware more fully of certain things. One of those 
things seems to be the free will. We are, as far 
as our own vision extends, the best mechanism 
through which the finite Consciousness becomes 
aware of itself on the side of free will. 


II 


Accepting this view, even speculatively, the 
implications are enormous. It goes far to explain 
the existence of what we call evil; but which 
might more accurately be defined as disharmony. 
Disharmony is a state of unbalance, of lack of 
equilibrium, and hence of discomfort. Discom- 
fort, in its broadest sense, extends so far as to 
include suffering of all sorts. 

For we must conceive that self-awareness on the 
side of free will is as yet far from complete. It 


278 CREDO 


is, like all faculties, like all creatures, like all 
ideas, in the process of perfection through the 
usual methods of trial and error; of experiment, 
abandoned or modified for re-use. It gropes. 
It struggles toward a more and more perfect, a 
more and more complete manifestation and under- 
standing of itself. It must learn by its failures 
and half successes how to handle itself. 

In the construction of the human body the eye 
is the mechanism by which one becomes aware of 
the form and colour of his surroundings. With- 
out the eye one would know little or nothing of 
these things. But suppose that some constructing 
Intelligence, having made the eye with this end 
and capacity, had gone farther and given it the 
power to decide for itself what it would or would 
not pass through its lenses to be reported to the 
brain, and in what form! Until the eye had 
found by its own experience that it did not pay 
to report a level plain where a precipice yawned, 
or an open prospect instead of the forest of bram- 
bles simply because plains and open prospects 
pleased it while precipices and brambles did not, 
there would be trouble. ‘Trouble for the owner 
of the eye, and therefore for the eye itself. For 


CREDO 279 


the health and well-being of the lesser depends on 
the whole. Only when by repeated experiment 
had it dawned on the eye that harmony and co- 
operation meant health and happiness would its 
owner become completely aware of reality and 
not of delusion. And it is probable that it would 
also dawn on the eye that it was possessed of some 
responsibility! —The fundamental responsibility 
of those creatures endowed with free will is not too 
unlike that crude illustration. For it is through 
themselves, as awareness-mechanisms, that the All- 
conscious is becoming more fully aware of one 
aspect of its finite self. 

This type of responsibility is another ingredient 
that must be taken into account when we come to 
the construction, each for himself, of a spiritual 
hygiene in accordance with which to live. For 
though no human being can look into the greater 
Consciousness with other understanding than he 
brings to the contemplation of his own, it would 
not be too far a cry to guess that when its aware- 
ness-response, through its creatures of free will, 
is of harmony with the basic law, it experiences 
pleasure as we experience pleasure in like case. 
And that when those mechanisms respond to dis- 


280 CREDO 


harmony, it feels the pain which our own personal 
disharmony—of body for example—brings to us. 
And that the struggle toward self-awareness, 
through mistake, through ignorance, through the 
slow obstruction of disharmony, the feeling of 
effort, of triumph in achievement or of temporary 
defeat, as reported or reflected or embodied in the 
countless multitudes of its creatures, is not unlike 
in kind our gropings upward. 


CHAPTER XX 


FE have skirted many times in the pre- 
ceding pages a most fascinating sub- 
ject for speculation. It is one which 

Wwe must examine to some extent, if only for the 
purpose of determining how much may lie within 
our deliberately set limit markers. I refer to 
space and time. 

It is no part of my intention to go into anything 
purporting to be an exhaustive discussion. Any- 
one interested may in the nearest good library go 
as far as he likes, even into the elusive abstractions 
of the fourth dimension, or the equally elusive 
speculations of the Einstein school as to three 
dimensioned space. The fourth dimension may 
be something into which eventually we shall grow, 
but it does not seem at present to be one of our 
immediately determining conditions... When we 





1 Anyone interested in getting at as clear a conception of what is 
meant by the fourth dimension as is possible to a beginner would 
better read Ouspensky’s Tertium Organum: then try Hinton. 


281 


282 CREDO 


occupy ourselves with our present position and 
conduct we deal with three dimensioned space 
only. The reasoning I am about to undertake, and 
the conclusions I shall draw, will be considered by 
the deeper student as fragmentary and more or less 
elementary. But my intention is to consider only 
those aspects of the subject which are necessary 
foundation stones to whatever solid belief each 
may eventually wish to construct. 


II 


What is this space and time by which we are 
conditioned? In the primitive view that question 
seems to be as simple as the one which asked for 
a distinction between living things and non-living 
things. But pressed home the inquiry is elusive. 
Even the primitive realizes that as far as we our- 
selves are concerned there is nothing positive about 
either. An hour to a lover is not at all the same 
thing as an hour to a prisoner: a mile to the 
motorist is quite different from the mile of the 
fellow afoot carrying a heavy pack and with a 
sprained ankle. We counter this thought by say- 
ing that the thing should not be considered sub- 
jectively. There are definite standards, the same 


CREDO 283 


for everybody. Clocks will measure the hour; 
and a yardstick will measure the mile. 

That sounds reasonable. Whence the clock? 
and who decided on the yardstick? That, of 
course, is easy. The clock’s hour is determined 
by the speed of revolution of our globe; and the 
yard is a definite fraction of the globe’s diameter.’ 
It does not matter whether one is a lover or a 
prisoner; a passenger or a pedestrian: an hour is 
an hour, and a mile is a mile. 

We will accept that, for the moment, as far as 
we are concerned. But suppose for argument’s 
sake there is intelligent life on Neptune, our most 
distant planet. Its year is 165 of our years; its 
diameter is over four times that of our earth. 
Even were they cognizant of our standards of 
measurement how much attention would the in- 
habitants of that planet pay to them, either sub- 
jectively or objectively? They would indubitably 
have their own hour, their own yardstick, which 
would be different from our own. Or let us 
examine any pebble under a powerful microscope. 
We will find ourselves looking from above on a 





1 Not in origin. But the standard yard is now defined in terms of 
a metre, and a metre is based on the size of the earth. 


284 CREDO 


rugged granite mountain. Perhaps under our 
immediate vision is a deep cafion, reaching down 
into unguessed depths, with dizzy cliffs and sheer 
breath-taking plunges into space. Never in all 
our travels have we peered into such an abyss. 
Even without imagining inhabitants for such an 
actually commodious world, how can we ourselves 
measure that space? Are we to conclude that all 
intelligent individual consciousness in the universe 
exists on globes just the size of ours and with 
exactly its speed of rotation? The assumption 
borders on absurdity. 

And where can we stop—in either direction? 
We have passed that pebble world a thousand 
times, and we and it mutually unconscious of each 
other: and on its tiny surface are other grains 
which a super-microscope—beyond our mechan- 
ical powers—could be conceived to expand to 
other complete landscapes of a wide spaciousness. 
There is room for many such expansions down to 
the millions of magnification which would make 
the molecule a globe the size of our own. Or 
imagine some greater entity looking down Ars 
microscope on our Grand Cajion; and he and our 
pebble of earth mutually unconscious of each 


CREDO 285 


other. And raise that scale again to an incom- 
prehensible magnitude at which we can only guess. 
What then? How can we measure space by yard- 
sticks? low are we even to give anything so 
elastic and changing a determinate and specific 
name? 


III 


Does it not become here almost self-evident that 
the only possible general standard of measure- 
ment cannot be anything but degree of conscious- 
ness. If we are to evaluate space at all it must 
be through the thing that is conditioned by it. 
To measure it we must take the point of view, so 
to speak, of the thing that is so conditioned. 
We must become for the purpose pebble-size, or 
us-size, or Neptune-size, or whatever. 

This is an important thought. It seems, as I 
have said, fairly self-evident, but it must be 
seriously considered and absorbed, for it leads to 
another thought that is significant. It is this: 

Since the above is true, it follows that space 
itself is an attribute of consciousness. 

Do not get the idea that this means that space is 
an illusion, that it is a “figment of the imagina- 


286 CREDO 


tion.” It is as real as any other manifestation. 
But it is, like these other manifestations, an exter- 
nalizing, so to speak, of Consciousness. It is, to 
repeat, one of its many attributes. And just as 
it is an attribute of Consciousness in general so 
we find—as we should expect—that in the 
microcosmos of ourselves it is also an attribute 
of our own individual consciousness. However 
rigid our yardstick may be, the basic fact remains 
that space is to each one of us a different thing. 
A thousand of those very uniform yards is one 
matter to a rifleman, another to a bowman. A 
mile is one thing to the savage and something quite 
different to the habitual motorist, and something 
still different to the cowboy. When we try to 
rigidify space by standards, we shall find this 
always to be the case. It must be one of the 
attributes of consciousness: it is content—what the 
individual is capable of perceiving. At the last 
we come to see that what we call distance is not 
space at all. Degrees of perception is space. 


IV 


When we turn to the contemplation of time, 
we find that exactly the same considerations hold 


CREDO 287 


true. Indeed, from a deeply philosophic point of 
view—with which we will not meddle now,—time 
is considered in one of its more abstruse aspects as 
merely part of the fourth dimension of space. 
But it is not necessary to delve into those abstrac- 
tions. In our own experience we will instantly 
acknowledge that in spite of the clock one minute 
may be quite unlike another. Again we need only 
remind ourselves that the prisoner’s hour and the 
lover’s hour have little kinship. 

It is when in imagination we step outside our 
own degree of consciousness, however, that we see 
this most clearly. Again let us look down the 
barrel of our microscope wherein we discovered 
our vast worlds of a new space, but this time upon 
a drop of ditch water. We will see innumerable 
creatures darting here and there among the seas, 
bays, and estuaries of an intricate series of water- 
ways. If we are sufficiently patient and enthusi- 
astic, and had we some means of keeping track of 
a specific individual from among the swarming 
multitudes, we might follow one of these tiny 
organisms from birth to death without losing an 
inordinate amount of our valuable time. His 
whole voyage of life among the bays and estuaries 


288 CREDO 


and channels and open seas is compassed and fin- 
ished while we look: and perhaps his whole teem- 
ing complicated world evaporates under our eyes. 
What impresses us about the whole thing is the 
extraordinary, the feverish speed of the whole 
process, the headlong dash of the tiny creatures. 
We see one of them set sail from his harbour and 
speed across a channel to an opposite port. There 
he lingers for a fraction of a second, only to dart 
up a waterway and out beyond the field of vision. 
We estimate that his voyage took about a second, 
perhaps two. 

How do we know? We have no authority for 
saying that, except as it affects our own particular 
degree of consciousness. As far as he is con- 
cerned, he may not be a hasty creature at all; but 
one of extreme and cautious deliberation. ‘There 
is no earthly reason to suppose that his day-cycles 
take their regulation from our own days. In- 
deed, it is quite probable that what we might call 
his days—his alterations of rest and activity—are 
conditioned on quite other circumstances. While 
we watched him, in that two seconds accorded him, 
he may quite well have been coaling up in the 
first harbour several of his days. His voyage 


CREDO 289 


across the inlet may have been long and rather 
monotonous. In the second harbour he may have 
lingered in recuperation for a day or so more; 
and then started out, like Christopher Columbus, 
over vast and uncharted seas. 

Or resume our hypothetical habitancy of Nep- 
tune. Is it quite likely that a Neptunite would 
experience the impression of waiting the duration 
of 165 years for spring to come around again? or 
would not the span of his year, in all probability, 
seem much the same to him as our year seems 
to us? 

And so, when we come to evaluate time as we 
attempted to evaluate space, we are driven again 
to define it as an attribute of consciousness. In 
order to build the clock we must know the con- 
sciousness of the creature that uses the clock. 


V 


When we have gone this far we begin to realize 
that space and time are inextricably intermingled. 
They express themselves in terms of one another. 
Space is the time occupied, by whatever means, of 
getting from here to there. It seems much more 
helpful, when a man asks you how far it is to town, 


290 CREDO 


to find out what means of locomotion he possesses 
for getting there and then telling him how long it 
is going to take him. ‘That is what he really wants 
to know: unless he intends to buy all the interven- 
ing land! An Indian will always tell you your 
journey in hours.” The canal-Dutchman used to 
estimate their distance in “pipes”; that is, the time 
it would take to smoke so many pipes of tobacco. 
It is quite a sensible procedure. 

Similarly, though not quite so obviously, time 
may be expressed in terms of space. It is the 
radius of space occupied by any given conscious- 
ness. 

This is not clear at first. But consider how in 
the course of our development we are continually 
reaching out to occupy more space. Our radius 
even of physical activity used to be very short. 
When we had to go afoot, without made paths, 
it was often ten or twenty miles only. That was 
as far from home as any but the most adventurous 
of us ever went. And the amount of space even 
the most adventurous could occupy was strictly 
limited by the length of his days. ‘The hollowing 
of ships and the taming of horses helped a little. 


CREDO 291 


But even then his habitual radius was only a trifle 
extended; and even were he to be an exceptional 
Marco Polo in his attainment of some far Cathay, 
the proportion of the earth’s suface still closed to 
him must remain considerable. Since then we 
have gradually extended our circle. It is now 
possible for an enterprising man to occupy nearly 
the whole earth. ‘The average is greatly widened. 
We are no longer as strictly local as we have been. 
Motors, aeroplanes, fast ships have helped us. 

And we might go further and define the measure 
of our occupation as the speed by which we can 
cross its circle; and that is where the expression in 
the terms of time comes in. A man may have a 
general knowledge of the country covered by the 
widest journeying he may be able to accomplish; 
but he has not the intimate knowledge of occu- 
pancy until he can go quickly and frequently to all 
parts of his domain. 

And we cannot confine these considerations to 
the merely physical. Man its likewise continually 
occupying more space by his thought. The prim- 
itive thinks only as far as he can see with his own 
two eyes: sometimes not even so far as that. Our 


292 CREDO 


astronomers think in terms of light years. ‘There 
once more we return to the intermingled idea of 
space and time together. 


VI 


This bring us inevitably to the conclusion that 
in any given instance time and space bear toward 
each other a fixed ratio. Each degree of con- 
sciousness has a rate of miles per hour, so to speak. 
Even among human beings this rate may vary 
somewhat. ‘To another sort of consciousness the 
ratio, as we have seen, may be entirely different. 
To each sort of consciousness, however, it must be 
an exact and mathematical thing. In our own 
case it is, of course, the ratio between the circum- 
ference of our earth and the speed of its rotation. 
The latter allows us normally a fixed and definite 
period of time in which to do what we can with the 
former. We all understand that, and have grown 
into it, and condition ourselves accordingly. 
Because we understand it we can intelligently 
comprehend the point of view as to duration and 
distance of all our fellow beings. 

But when we attempt to observe or estimate 
after the manner of other sorts of consciousness 


CREDO 293 


than our own, we are at a loss. We do not know 
how long that two-second voyage of our micro- 
scopic creature seemed to him, either in time or 
space; and we have no means of finding out. We 
may estimate it by observing the duration of the 
vital processes and assuming a psychology to fit. 
But we do not know. Whye Because we do not 
know the ratio for this particular degree of con- 
sciousness. 

For there must be for him a ratio that is as 
mathematically exact as our own. It is the ratio 
peculiar to the circumstances of space which he 
has succeeded in occupying. Just as we, as human 
beings, have our own ratio; so our microscopical 
voyager must have his. And when we apply the 
ratio of one degree of consciousness to another, 
we merely confuse things; we unbalance things; 
we cannot possibly get other than a distorted in- 
tellectual image. 

In order to understand any other degree of con- 
sciousness we would have to be able either to enter 
into and assume as our own its time and space 
ratio; or we would have to be able to manipulate 
it, as one manipulates a mathematical formula, so 
as to translate its concepts into something we can 


294. CREDO 


understand. Supposing the hypothetical inhab- 
itants of Neptune to possess some ratio commen- 
surate to their 16s-year-long year, it is evident 
that even to communicate with them we must 
adapt or translate. If each of their seconds 
amounted to 165 of our seconds, and all their 
activities were gauged accordingly, our normal 
speech would be to them a meaningless blur. 
That is a simple physical example of what must 
be in reality much more complicated. The fling 
of thought itself is conditioned. The ability to 
know or handle other ratios is as yet beyond our 
power; but it must be a matter of exact mathe- 
matics, and it may be that in our own future we 
shall acquire command of it. Or it may well be 
that higher consciousnesses, if such exist, may al- 
ready have command of it to a greater or lesser 
extent. 


VII 


Like many powers-to-be this is curiously 
adumbrated in abnormal conditions. When the 
mathematical co-efficient is disturbed in the human 
brain by fever, or by certain drugs, it enters into 
or is partly influenced by other ratios than its own. 


CREDO 295 


These ratios may be either outside or inside its 
proper circle of occupation. A minute stretches 
to an hour; a night is years long. Events in 
vision seem to occur appropriately spaced with 
all the due leisure of actual happenings; and yet, 
while their apparent duration is days long, their 
actual perception may be within an hour. Some 
of the reactions to hasheesh illustrate this most 
strikingly. Cases have been reported where time 
has been speeded up—its ratio to space has been 
seriously altered—so that a man has seemed to 
himself to have been instantaneously transported 
from one side of a city to the other. Yet there 
was no lapse in perfect continuity. In another 
case the hasheesh eater has, as far as he was con- 
cerned, consumed several hours in a journey from 
his library door to his hearth. He had actually 
taken only as many seconds, yet all those inflated 
hours had been normally and completely and 
satisfactorily filled with incident. His circle of 
occupation had for the time being been contracted. 

As I conceive it, the first thing our advanced 
student of the future would have to seek, when 
attempting—as he may—to enter for one purpose 
or another other degrees of consciousness than his 


206 CREDO 


own, wouid be the constant in the time and space 
ratio he seeks to use. ‘There must always be such 
a constant: otherwise there must be infinite con- 
fusion. If mere subjectivity is to be the measure 
we have again to remember that no two beings 
see time alike. It flies or it drags. There must 
be a stable thing outside the individual to which 
to srefér: a. yardstick anda .clocki.W eubaue 
adopted as our constant—or it has adopted us— 
the revolution of the earth, which has regularity, 
whatever else we may think about it. Similarly 
each degree of consciousness that has become self- 
consciousness in any degree, each circumference 
of occupied space, each ratio of time and space 
within that circumference must also have its con- 
stant. A knowledge of what this constant is must 
be prerequisite to understanding manipulation of 
the elements of time and space in any circum- 
ference whatever. We must know our twenty- 
four-hour day and its minutes and seconds, and 
we must know our capabilities of distance per 
second before we can estimate our journey. And 
any entity from some distant star, any degree of 
consciousness other than our own must know it 
also before it can come into understanding contact 


CREDO 297 


with us. We ourselves are acquainted at present 
with no other ratio than our own; and we are not 
as yet very skilful or at all final in our handling 
of that. We get better at it as we develop. We 
are constantly ‘“‘annihilating’’ more space—and 
therefore time—as we progress. 

Since we know neither the ratio nor the con- 
stant of other fields of consciousness than our own, 
we are quite unable to enter their fields of subjec- 
tivity. In simple words, we do not understand 
their point of view. ‘To do that we would first of 
all have to possess the knowledge; and then we 
would have to manipulate our own ratio in such 
a manner as to make it correspond to theirs. 
That is one reason we cannot deliberately com- 
municate with other degrees of consciousness as 
they communicate with each other. 

Indeed, I conceive that if—as many believe— 
higher entities than ourselves do actually at times 
manage to communicate with some of us, this is 
one of the many difficulties that would make their 
communications fragmentary and unsatisfactory. 
It is conceivable—even probable—that their con- 
stant and ratio differ from our own. In that case 
we must assume, as a prerequisite for any com- 


298 CREDO 


munication whatever, that these entities, being of 
a higher development, have been able in some as 
yet imperfect way to translate their ratio into 
an approximation of ours. The thing must be 
mathematical. A complete knowledge of formula 
and method would of course permit a perfect 
manipulation, and consequently a perfect adapta- 
tion to our conditioning circumstances; and hence 
a perfect communicability. But suppose that even 
to these more advanced entities the knowledge is 
not quite completer Suppose the algebra of these 
equations is as yet imperfectly mastered? 
Wherever that interesting train of thought 
might lead us, the result must be inevitably highly 
speculative. But from it we do get another slant 
at development; another definition to use when we 
come to the construction of our personal formula. 
Development, from this fresh angle, consists of 
an alternate reaching out to include more in the 
field of life, and then the bringing by one means 
or another of the scattered elements in that field 
into closer juxtaposition. We reached out to in- 
clude more space when we adopted the automobile. 
By its means we then proceeded actually to bring 
the things within that space closer together. 


CREDO 299 


Measuring distance by time we made a twenty- 
mile square as compact a unit as was formerly a 
mile square. We might call this process a 
“Squeezing out” of space. It has been an in- 
variable concomitant of development. 

We can, starting from the microscopic organ- 
isms, trace a gradual expansion of field from the 
explorable vastness of a drop of water on the 
slide to the equally explorable spaces that separate 
the stars. 


CHAPTER XXI 


OW gradually, out of all the confusion 
of a few things known and many more 





guessed, we have arrived at a broad 
and general attitude toward ourselves. We see 
that we—in company with all the rest of creation 
—have at once an urge and an obligation toward 
development. That development is of ourselves 
and of the things with which we come into con- 
tact. The one is reciprocally dependent on the 
other. If we succeed in attaining a harmonious 
personal development, then by that very fact we 
help the rest of consciousness: if on the other hand 
we work along proper lines for the help of others, 
then that fact reacts in our favour personally. In 
whatever manner we have examined the field and 
method of this development—whether in space 
and time, in relation to the greater Consciousness, 
in relation to the quality of consciousness, or what 
not—we have found it to be invariably toward 
300 


CREDO 301 


expansion, toward a wider inclusion. ‘There is a 
resistless urge, a passion toward this. Sometimes 
that urge has translated itself as ambition, some- 
times as mere discontent, sometimes as revolt. 
The discomfort that must accompany a function 
unfulfilled, an experiment incompleted, a balance 
not restored, we have variously named with 
synonyms for evil. 

In this light we cannot but see that cruelty and 
injustice resolve themselves into stupidities; and 
the thing can still be stupid because it still is in the 
process of becoming. Furthermore, these pres- 
sures of discomforts of all sorts,—the necessity 
for toil, the necessity for combat, the necessity for 
resistance,—are lightened only when and to the 
degree that the equation is solved. Left to itself 
the human soul is naturally inert. It sits itself 
down under its banana tree and goes rapidly into 
a fatty degeneration. Only by pressures that in- 
duce rebound can it be roused to action. These 
pressures are inherent in the very incompleteness 
of the task; and the incompleteness comes to per- 
ception translated as evil and injustice, suffering 
and woe. Only thus are we made cognizant that 
something yet remains to be done. 


302 CREDO 


And as any particular phase of the job nears 
completion, that particular pressure is lifted. 
We have improved our lot. Little by little, al- 
most imperceptibly the coarser physical drudg- 
eries are lifting. To be sure, in spite of great 
discoveries in the material world there is still 
much drudgery to be done; but some of the older 
crass pressures are no longer universally necessary 
and have been to an extent discarded. Famine, 
for instance. The Neanderthal man had, in all 
probability, to be constantly prodded by the fear 
of it. When he had a fresh kill he ceased from 
all effort; and if he could have been assured of an 
unfailing supply of meat, together with a warm 
safe place to eat it in, he would have been quite 
content never to do anything any more. But the 
fact that he could quite literally starve and freeze 
kept him busy. In the modern world stark famine 
as a pressure has been much attenuated. Except 
as a catastrophe it no longer exists. It has been 
diluted down to the necessity to make a living; 
and in the majority of cases that in turn has been 
diluted to the desire to make the particular kind 
of living the individual wants. 


CREDO 303 


This is a crude example; but it is a good one. 
Not many of our fundamental pressures have been 
wholly lifted. We are not very far along yet in 
development. But a great many of them have 
been thinned, refined. There is considerable 
difference between the pain in the pit of the 
stomach the cave-man felt when he failed to make 
his kill, and the pain in the conscience an upright 
man experiences when he fails his friend. ‘There 
is a vast difference between the sort of toil that 
destroyed thousands of lives under the lash in the 
building of the pyramids, and the sort of toil that 
erects the modern skyscraper. None of these 
pressures, to repeat, has been wholly lifted. The 
socialist will tell you that some of the men who 
build the skyscraper are as much slaves to an 
industrial system as were the Egyptian slaves 
under the Pharaohs’ taskmasters. Possibly so. 
Nevertheless the slavery is not in so crude a form. 
If the pressure still exists, it is because it is, 
broadly speaking, still necessary. ‘That it is at 
times what we call an evil pressure is because it 
is an uncomfortable pressure. That it is uncom- 
fortable is because that to which it appertains is 


304 CREDO 


still in the process of becoming, is still an object 
of experiment, of adjustment, of striving. The 
equation is not yet satisfied. 


II 


The object of pressure, then, is apparently to 
arouse. ‘The emphasis of pressure, the degree of 
its discomforts, its miseries, its evils, its seemingly 
useless despair and tragedies and senseless cruelties 
against which we all cry out is an indication of the 
importance in the scheme of things of keeping 
alive at any sacrifice, at any cost, the flame of 
desire. No price is too great to pay for that. 
Nothing is of importance as compared to it. In 
the attainment of any primal necessity Nature 
always over-emphasizes, under-scores. She pours 
in reserves, and yet more reserves, to assure over- 
Whelmingly the victory. That one animalcula 
carry on she creates millions; that one herring 
may reach the spawning shore she brings thou- 
sands into existence; that the race may go on she 
overloads the sexual instinct. She cannot afford 
to take chances; and rightly, for failure would be 
complete. The important thing is that Conscious- 
ness should progress in its finite aspect, becoming 


CREDO 305 


increasingly aware, pushing steadily and slowly 
but very surely toward its unknown unguessed 
goal. The job of being increasingly and expand- 
ingly Me must go on. 

And in order that it go on the flame of desire 
must burn bright. That is vital because desire is 
vitality itself. The measure of its intensity is 
life: the measure of its absence is the degree of 
true death. All other considerations, in the very 
nature of things, pale into significance as com- 
pared to this. All other things depend on this. 
Without that urge forward, that upspringing ever- 
renewed effort against inertia the scheme drops. 


Ill 


But though we can look forward to a gradual 
thinning of certain of the cruder pressures and 
resistances, and eventually to the entire removal of 
some of them, we cannot anticipate that all pres- 
sures will ever be lifted, so that we shall be 
eternally ‘“‘at rest.” Nor should we wish this to 
be the case. ‘The aeroplane rises only by resist- 
ance, and would fallin vacuo. But it is one thing 
to fight blindly, and another thing to fight under- 
standingly. The overcoming of resistances be- 


306 CREDO 


comes a pleasurable function when one has ob- 
tained the command that comes from working in 
harmony. A skilled woodcarver enjoys his daily 
combat against the stubbornness of his material, 
whereas the small boy gets scant satisfaction from 
the woodpile ax. 

It is not necessary to evoke a personal super- 
vising intelligence in each and every instance to 
discover that as we show ourselves capable of re- 
maining aroused, eager, vital, in the same pro- 
portion we are less spurred. The action is 
mechanical, reciprocating. Inertia brings swiftly 
applied pressure; pressure in turn arouses. An 
aroused spirit overcomes the inertia. And when- 
ever the intricate web of life has brought it about 
that any pressure has been prematurely lifted, 
then we have observed a swift degeneration, a 
catastrophic lapse back, sometimes to the danger 
point. Occasionally this premature relief has 
been brought about in a small way, not by the 
effort of those immediately involved, but by the 
well-meant effort of others. The result has been 
the same. ,This is the profoundly basic reason 
why any wide scheme of ordinary “philanthropy” 
does not work; why the beneficent despotism 


CREDO 307 


does not work; why the indulgent parent does 
not work; why one cannot legislate virtue. 
Virtue is not an end in itself; it is a measure 
of growth. All one man can do for his fel- 
low man is to help him toward keeping awake. 
Though here and there individual cases may 
be found—perhaps even in considerable num- 
bers—where certain of the cruder pressures 
are still blindly applied beyond their time, the 
fact remains, by and large, that mankind in 
general is just about where it belongs in the scheme 
of things, and is rationed but little short of the 
point where it would be too apt to sit down con- 
tent. 


IV 


To many this will seem a harsh philosophy. It 
is not meant to be so; nor do I conceive that it 
really isso. That there is an inherent immediate 
injustice in many, perhaps even most, individual 
cases has little to do with it. ‘The Scheme, as far 
as we have progressed in it, seems very young, very 
new. We represent rather crude beginnings. 
We know very little, and we have accomplished 
less, as compared to the possibilities of knowledge 


308 CREDO 


and of accomplishment. In our position we are 
relatively only as far along as the sand wasp’s re- 
mote ancestors: we are still experimentally stab- 
bing away, and perishing by the thousands. The 
injustice, and evil, and graft, and hatred, and 
cruelty, and wars, and other blind follies and ex- 
travagances are our failures. But we keep on 
stabbing! ‘That is the important point. Our de- 
sire is still aflame and eager. And we are kept 
aflame and eager because of the necessities that 
drive us. Necessities will always drive us, world 
without end, amen. But we can conceive that in 
some remotely future estate they may be the joyous 
necessities of harmonious fulfilment rather than 
the harder necessities of mere maintenance. They 
will become so when by our struggle upward we 
make them so. 


V 


Some people see little hope in the situation. 
They look too closely about them. Their sym- 
pathies are enlisted, their imaginations filled by 
the troubles of men. War, pestilence, strife, in- 
humanity, oppression, greed, meanness, graft, cor- 
ruption—all the destructive or deterrent forces— 


CREDO 309 


appear to them to be in the ascendant. Their 
minds are filled by and their tongues will quote 
the specific instance. They arrest the film for 
a detailed view; and the detailed view is not re- 
assuring. But an arrested film is a picture of an 
absolute thing, a condition of affairs that is fixed: 
while this is a thing that is becoming. It moves; 
and it changes; and it has direction. 

The movement is slow; despairingly slow if 
viewed from a single lifetime, or even the col- 
lective recollection of a people. But what can 
that matter, except to an individual viewpoint as 
expressed in a circumscribed manifestation? 
Whether a result is reached in ten years or ten 
thousand is important only to a certain time and 
space ratio. He who denies progress, even in 
the simpler humanities, is no student of history. 
Things are bad enough now; they were infinitely 
worse only the other day. We have here and 
there a criminal type of factory child labour, and 
it seems impossible to get adequate legislation 
against it. But it is not a widespread condition, 
public sentiment is actively opposed, and a vigour- 
ous fight is being made against it. Only a trifle 
over a century ago a little child was ordered de- 


310 CREDO 


ported to a criminal colony for carelessly tangling 
and breaking the bobbins of thread with which he 
was working. ‘This was neither an isolated case 
of the sort, nor was it considered unusual or 
severe or unjustified. Not long before that Sir 
Philip Sidney was acclaimed as a most magnani- 
mous warrior and so heralded throughout all 
Europe, so that his fame for gentleness of spirit 
has come down to us—largely on the basis of one 
deed. He gave to a wounded soldier the cup of 
water he was about to drink himself! It was a 
gracious and humane thing to do: probably Sir 
Philip was very dry after an arduous battle. The 
point of the matter is that at that time such an ac- 
tion was so unusual as to attract all that attention. 
A century or so ago, as a matter of course and 
openly, they imprisoned men most vilely for small 
debts, they hanged them for theft of the value of 
a few shillings. The medizvalist was strictly and 
locally and everlastingly for himself alone. The 
thought of altruistic service had not dawned on 
him. Association for such service was practically 
unknown. And so on back. One with even a 
slender knowledge of detailed history of the sort 
that deals with something besides dates and kings 


CREDO 311 


and wars can hardly fall into the mistake of be- 
lieving that things have not a motion and a 
change and a direction. 

Some escape this conclusion by pointing to the 
fact that prototypes of all past evils exist actively 
to-day. That is true. Why not? In any organ- 
ism—including the quality of consciousness we 
represent—all past history is both summed up and 
represented. ‘There are cave men to-day, and 
medizvalists, and predatory barons and all the rest 
of the crew. So are there protozoa and zoophytes 
and worms and molluscs and reptiles now flourish- 
ing just about as they used to flourish in all the 
stages of physical evolution back to the beginning. 
Probably there always will be. But we must re- 
member that at one time the reptile, for example, 
was the highest and preponderating type of life. 
The fact that he still exists and carries on his af- 
fairs according to his reptilian ideas is no argu- 
ment for the persistence of a reptilian world. 
Higher types of consciousness have evolved, and 
a different set of ideas, a different preponderating 
body of opinion has come into being. 

The difference may be, acknowledgedly is, too 
slight. "The change may be, evidently is, almost 


‘gT2 CREDO 


dishearteningly slow. But there is change, there 
is movement, there is direction. 


VI 


But, insists your pessimist, is there after all ac- 
tual improvement? Externals may change, but 
human nature at bottom remains ever the same. 
When you dig down below the surface you will 
find the same medizvalist, the same cave man at 
heart. Under stress of war, or famine, or danger 
of life, men quickly revert to primitive action and 
motive; civilization is only a thin veneer. 

Of course! Why not? Human nature remains 
the same because human nature is nothing more 
nor less than the sum of all the attributes of the 
human quality. That sum must remain constant, 
or it would not make up the human quality. ‘That 
is basic. Every one of the characteristics of the 
medieval man, of the cave man, must necessarily 
exist in us to-day. We may have brought to 
maturity many other, and higher characteristics, 
and we may have rendered important some that 
were formerly unimportant, but as far as the sum 
is concerned we have added nothing and sub- 
tracted nothing. Everything that makes us hu- 


CREDO 313 


man exists and has existed—either matured, or in 
process, or in potentiality—in every one of us, 
since we became human; and will persist as long 
as we remain human. ‘The proportions change; 
and the fields of action change. Attributes that 
have been merely potentialities in the cave man we 
have brought to the surface, and developed and 
learned to control. Attributes that were leading 
motives in the cave man we have—not changed or 
destroyed— but sublimated. 

In that last word we find our answer to the 
pessimist. Freud and his school showed us the 
way, in their examination of one motive and at- 
tribute from among the many. We are by now 
thoroughly familiar with the process of sublima- 
tion by which the merely sexual instinct is raised 
in level, step by step, until it manifests itself in a 
high altruism. ‘The number of esthetic percep- 
tions alone that seem to be able to trace a direct 
pedigree to this one instinct is astonishing. The 
attribute of consciousness throughout remains the 
same: it merely changes its aspect and the con- 
ditions under which it works. 

This has taken place in the history of the race: 
it often takes place in the individual, and by direct 


314 CREDO 


intention. It has now become a commonplace of 
treatment for those in whom the sexual instinct is 
too predominant. The urge is deliberately sub- 
limated. 

But though we all know about sublimation in 
this particular aspect, we are not so familiar with 
the thought that it not only applies to all other 
human attributes; but that it is an habitual process 
of evolution. Pure downright personal selfish- 
ness that grabs what it can, fights ruthlessly, and 
is quite devoid of a thought for anybody else on 
earth, soon extends to include the mate, then the 
children. It is still selfish, but in a double aspect. 
The primitive wishes to preserve the family for 
his own pleasure and comfort primarily; but he 
is selfish for them also a little on their own ac- 
count. His ego has expanded to an inclusion. 
By progressive steps this grows to comprehend the 
camp, the village, the tribe, the nation. It goes 
beyond that. By a further process of sublimation 
it eventually includes sacrifice of one’s intimate 
personal comfort or advantage for the sake of an- 
other. “I am not to be praised,” disclaims such 
a man, “I am in reality acting selfishly because if 
I did not do this I would feel uncomfortable about 


CREDO 315 


it.’ Pure selfishness has become, from one point 
of view, selflessness.) No conceivable human 
action can be imagined that may not, in this man- 
ner, be analysed as enlightened self-interest. 

Indeed, this sort of analysis is a favourite diver- 
sion of your pessimist. One whole school at- 
tempts to take the glory out of all esthetic and af- 
fectional impulse by reducing it to the sexual. It 
is a very simple matter similarly to label any 
constructive action as enlightened self-interest, 
thereby disparaging it by a name. The trick is 
both easy and plausible. But it ignores the most 
important idea of sublimation. | 

Similarly with the other attributes of human 
nature which have existed in the past. They have 
not changed in essential character, but they are 
all, every one of them, ever tending to work in 
thinner and thinner material; they are ever mov- 
ing into a sublimation. Most of them are lament- 
ably short; many of them have moved very little 
from their original estate. We should not expect 
anything different for the simple reason that as yet 
we are not very far along, wonderful as we some- 
times think ourselves. But they have moved; 
they are moving. 


316 CREDO 


VII 


And the conditions in which they manifest 
themselves are man’s own work. He it is who 
has thinned the material. “To be sure,” objects 
the pessimist, “the predatory industrial baron no 
longer as a matter of course everywhere exploits 
small children. But that does not indicate any 
great moral reform on his part. He merely 
hasn’t the chance. If he had the chance, he’d do 
it quick as a wink.” Precisely! And he has not 
the chance because public opinion, as a whole, has 
more or less effectively closed the chance; and 
public opinion in such basic matters is a measure 
of mankind’s growth throughout effort. It has 
forced a sublimation of greed in this particular 
affair. The greed may be as yet pretty ugly, but 
it is not as ugly. The sublimation is very slight, 
but it is real. The predatory industrial baron 
may not have reformed his ideas; but he is forced 
by the advance of the body of consciousness to 
which he belongs to advance with it. And in time 
that fact even reacts on him. Predatory indus- 
trial barons are still predatory, but as a class they 
would not now dream of duplicating all the con- 


CREDO 317 


ditions of a hundred years ago, even had they the 
chance. 

Again we must repeat, we cannot expect to elim- 
inate the cave man any more than we should ex- 
pect to find the elimination of all earlier steps in 
evolution. If there is, under our major hypothe- 
sis, to be a progressive elimination of forms of con- 
sciousness that have completed their job of being 
completely Me, that elimination must begin far 
down and work up. The different qualities of 
consciousness depend one on the other in lineage, 
pass one into the other in ascending continuity. 
There are a great many qualities of consciousness 
below that of the cave man. The supply of cave 
men, from below in the ascent, would seem to be 
suficient. But we can expect slowly to raise the 
general average. At one time the cave man was 
the highest type. Then, although there were 
higher types, he still preponderated and estab- 
lished the conditions of life. Next those higher 
types tended toward predominance and established 
the conditions not only for the cave man, but for 
newer and still higher types as yet in the minority. 
Our hope is to continue this process: to produce, 
first of all, ever higher consciousness; then to in- 


318 CREDO 


crease the number of the individuals possessing 
that consciousness to the point where they will 
make the conditions. And so on up. That is 
what I mean in essence by public opinion. Its 
average establishes the conditions for the action 
of the human attributes, whatever they may be. 
Its average is the measure of our progress. 

So when we say that A would grab, steal, lie, 
bite, scratch and gouge in the good old way, only 
he has not now the chance, we are merely trying 
to place A in evolution. We are labelling him in- 
dividually. If we would label the human race 
we must define the chance. 

Many of even the simplest conditions under 
which a certain small degree of sublimation is 
working have not been stabilized. They are 
easily overset; and then we revert temporarily to 
old conditions. When that happens we find in 
dominance the people, or the kind of motives, or 
the ideas that were normally dominating the old 
conditions. But the lapses, serious as they may be, 
are in the long run temporary. And it is to be 
noted that the reversion is, broadly speaking, in 
conditions and not in degrees of consciousness. 
Merely, for the time being, the most advanced 


CREDO 319 


class resumes the place that it formerly had oc- 
cupied,—as too far ahead to represent the average 
of public opinion. 

So Pessimism is, after all, merely the taking of 
too narrow a view. When things are dark, just 
extend the horizon. If one continues far enough, 
he is bound to come upon clear skies at last. 


CHAPTER XXIT 


E seem now, however inadequately, to 
have traversed the field we had laid 
out for ourselves. That is, we have 

made some sort of an attempt at an accounting for 
the universe which is intellectually satisfying; we 
have placed ourselves in that universe; we have 
determined a movement, indicated a direction. 
Above all, we have tried to show that the outlook is 
hopeful. These are all assistants toward orienta- 
tion. Once a man is oriented, he must go ahead 
by his own compass. 

Therefore, this little volume comes logically to 
its end. Further speculation would enter differ- 
ent fields. We should next have to examine man’s 
relations with himself, and man’s relations with 
his fellow men. The first would include spiritual 
hygiene, in all that it implies of development, 


equipment and method. ‘The second would com- 
320 


CREDO a2 


prise ethics and the mechanism of communication 
in the broadest sense; struggle, and cooperation. 
If the present volume happens to arouse enough 
interest in these purely personal beliefs of mine, I 
may go on to discuss these questions in subsequent 
works. In the meantime, my strongest advice is, 
that by whatever means most appeals, each human 
being establish his direction. He must do this be- 
fore he can begin to move, except aimlessly and 
in dependence on lucky chance. 






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APPENDIX 
I 


R. ALLEN’S report was read before 

the British Association for the Ad- 

vancement of Science at their Hull 

Meeting in 1922. This report is difficult to ob- 

tain, so for the benefit of the curious reader I here 
epitomize the argument as briefly as possible. 

It has been found that light in very short wave 
lengths acting on sea water and carbon dioxide 
produces formaldehyde with liberation of free 
oxygen. Light of slightly longer wave length 
causes the molecules of formaldehyde to unite to 
form simple sugars. By light of a still different 
wave length nitrates are converted to the more 
chemically active nitrites. Nitrites have been 
united with active formaldehyde by subjecting the. 
mixture to light from a quartz mercury lamp. 
The result is a nitrogeneous organic substance. 

That, so to speak, is the first cycle. We have 
the spectacle of organic substance formed directly 

323 


324. CREDO 


from sea water by the action of light waves of dif- 
ferent lengths. ‘These wave lengths are not avail- 
able in sunlight as we know it in the present day. 
But it is quite possible that they were present in 
some past phase of earth evolution, when organic 
substance may be conceived to have come into ex- 
istence. Furthermore, it has been found that cer- 
tain colours have the property of making even 
present day sunlight active in this respect. These 
colours have been named photocatalysts, and may 
have been present in the atmosphere or the sea 
water at the beginning of organic substance. This 
is the first step: the formation of organic sub- 
stance without the intervention of living organ- 
isms. ‘The organic substance (for reasons derived 
from pure physics) would take the colloid state.’ 

Now the electric charges on this surface of col- 
loid particles would produce absorption, and 
fresh ions would be attracted from all about. 
Thus we have now a mass of colloid, differing in 
surface tension from the sea water, and increasing 
in size by two processes: (1) chemical, from the 
linkage of carbon atoms; and (2) physical, from 
the absorption of ions. 





1 Colloid—merely the antithesis of crystalloid. 


CREDO 325 


Obviously the surface tension of this colloid sub- 
stance must be slightly different from that of the 
surrounding sea water. 

The difference in surface tension would tend to 
make the surface of the colloid as small as pos- 
sible, which tendency, if unchecked, would result 
in a sphere. But the tendency toward growth 
would, on the other hand, demand as large a sur- 
face as possible in order to facilitate exchange with 
the surrounding medium. ‘Thus we have a con- 
flict. The result is a tendency for the mass to 
break up into minute particles at the slightest agi- 
tation, and to change form wherever by growth 
local alterations in surface tension are brought 
about. 

The building up process,—which, it must be re- 
membered, is dependent on light waves—would be 
subject to the alterations of night and day. At 
night, naturally, light, the supply of energy, 
would be removed. In order to delay to an extent 
the resultant onset of what is called molecular 
finality some sort of reaction must continue, even 
though at a lower rate, until the following day 
brings back the light waves again. The thing has 
to be kept going. Since, obviously, this cannot 


326 CREDO 


be through energy from without, it must be 
through energy from within. The only way en- 
ergy can be released from within is by some sort of 
breaking down process, just as heat is released 
from coal by its breaking down under oxygeniza- 
tion. The colloidal plasma for the first time ex- 
hibits an adaptation. It has previously been 
merely chemical proteid matter. Now it “be- 
comes an autotropic, increasingly self-regulated, 
and so far individualized entity.” Autotropic 
means simply “capable of self-nourishment.” 

Next this plasma differentiates naturally, from 
the mere fact of its position as respects the source 
of light into different layers. ‘The first is in molec- 
ular contact with the water, from which it re- 
ceives substances in the form of ions, and to which 
it gives off ions. The next is a self-nourishing 
layer to which light penetrates under whose in- 
fluence new organic substance is formed in the 
manner we have sketched. And, third, a centre 
to which light does not penetrate, and which also 
is cut off from the surrounding medium. The 
latter, having no other means of support, is forced 
to depend on the outside layers for its nutrition. 
And in consequence it is itself concerned only with 


CREDO 327 


the breaking down process of producing energy. 

Already, as we see, this thing is acquiring spe- 
cialized functions. It is also acquiring shape. 
The part nearest the light grows faster than the 
part in the shadow. Therefore, the original 
sphere becomes elongated. The thing has definite 
ends. And with the concentration at the nucleus 
the specific gravity of the plasma exceeds that of 
the water. It tends to sink. But as that would 
remove it from the light, on which it depends, an- 
other adaptation is necessary. We see the part of 
the external layer which les nearest the light be- 
coming contractile and moving rhythmically. 
This makes a tractor that tends to draw the plasma 
toward the source of light, and so prevent sinking. 

But while this adaptation was in process the 
loss must have been enormous. Probably only in 
comparatively shallow waters could the organism 
survive. ‘There must have been a constant shower 
of moribund plasma sinking toward the ocean bed. 
If by chance one of these moribund plasma hap- 
pened to come against one more vigorous it would 
coalesce with the latter, as two drops merge. 
That would be a kind of feeding. Or if two mor- 
ibund plasma, both sinking, should come in con- 


328 CREDO 


tact, they too would coalesce; and the combined 
energy of the two might result in revivication. 
That would be conjugation—analogous to a sort 
of sexual fusion. 

Again, in shallow water it would often happen 
that an organism would run aground and stick to 
the bottom. The tractor would go on working; 
only now, instead of drawing the organism up- 
ward, it would tend to suck the sea water down- 
ward. If weaker organisms happened into the 
current thus formed they would drift down and 
the two would coalesce. Thus ingestion and ani- 
mal nutrition would in these cases gradually take 
preponderance over mere plant growth. We have 
a true animal. 

Dr. Allen goes farther into other considerations 
—such as the imperative necessity of shallow water 
for any development whatever—but this is the gist 
of his report as respects the development of life 
from ordinary sea water and light. 


II 


The pedinella is a floating flagellate which 
nourishes itself in typical plant fashion, i.e. by 
chemical change of mineral substance under the 


CREDO 329 


influence of light through chromatophores—col- 
our cells. It possesses a sort of trailing fringed 
stalk which has to do with its tractor arrange- 
ments. But occasionally this stalk causes it to run 
aground. The pedinella then begins to feed as an 
animal, by ingestion. After this has continued for 
some time, the chromatophores practically dis- 
appear. 


THE END 









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